


Lifeline (Fjarlægur)

by witchelmm



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Gen, M/M, Slow Burn, are cyber fetishists a thing oh my lord, i don't romanticise anxiety and ocd, i romanticise shitty camera quality, isn't it weird that there's no lifeline fanfiction, it has a happy ending yay, text-based homosexuality, that's not a thing, this isn't lifeline fanfiction, you'd think the cyber fetishists would be all over it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-12 05:22:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 32,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9057319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchelmm/pseuds/witchelmm
Summary: Jason was a law student. He hated law.Percy was an exobiology student. He loved exobiology. He was also stuck on an uncharted moon.





	1. genesis

**2:21 AM, unknown sender:** _Hello_  

 **2:23 AM** **:** _Can anyone read me?_  

At the second buzz of his phone, Jason blindly flailed his hand over to his nightstand, not bothering with glasses—it was probably Leo with some late-night, fever-dream induced puns. 

But then he was faced with those messages. 

 ** _Track messenger’s location?_**  

 ** _WARNING: if using a mobile device under the following providers, the messenger will receive a notification that you have tracked them._** ** _Do you still want to track the messenger’s location?_**  

Jason did. 

 ** _Error. Location not found. Please try again._**  

Jason refreshed his screen. 

 ** _Error. Please check your connection and try again._**  

Anti-tracking software was understandable. Jason’s top-of-the-line new cellphone, courtesy of his mother’s failed attempts to bond with him, was creepy; he could understand that. 

But. 

 _But._  

That did not explain the messages. 

 **2:27 AM, unknown sender:** _If anyone can read this please respond I’m running out of power_  

Jason decided to respond. 

 **2:28** **AM,** **Jason:** _Yeah, I’m getting these._  

 **2:30** **AM, unknown sender:** _Thank god its been hours_ _since I've talked to anyone_  

 **2:30** **AM:** _I mean this isn't real talking but still_  

It was too late—early?—for this. Jason sat up, finally pushing his glasses onto his face after rubbing the heel of his palm across his eyes. 

 **2:31 AM, Jason:** _Who are you_ _?_  

 **2:31 AM, unknown sender:** _Shit right shoulda started with that._  

 **2:32 AM:** _My names Percy_  

 **2:32 AM:** _I_ _was an astronaut on the_ _Varia_  

Jason ran a quick google search on the _Varia_ _,_ and came up with the following: 

It was NASA’s latest project—top technology, the first spacecraft employing complete alternative energy sources. 

The _Varia_ had gone into space almost two weeks ago, and the latest news said that NASA had lost contact with it. 

He could find no mention of any ‘Percy’ in the crew listing. 

But, if Percy—or, whoever Jason was texting—wasn’t kidding, Jason might be the only person to find out what had happened to the _Varia_ _._  

 **2:38** **A** **M, Jason:** _‘Was’? What happened?_  

There was a conversational gap so long that Jason thought he had almost lost the mystery person, before a giant chunk of text came through. 

 **2:4** **5 A** **M, unknown** **sender** **:** _crashed on some moon. I got not fucking idea where._ _I was in_ _an_ _escape pod but I don't know if anyone else was._ _M_ _y DPC sensor_ _says the air is breathable so that's a miracle_ _but I_ _don't have any food or water. Managed to get the pods mobile transmitter working but the_ _triangulation software’s fucked_ _Lucky for you, you're_ _the first person I managed to get hold of after fucking with it for four hours._  

Jason, despite assuring himself that it was all complete bullshit, was starting to get legitimately concerned for this foul-mouthed stranger. 

 **2:47** **AM** **, Jason:** _Are you okay?_  

 **2:** **47** **AM** **, unknown** **sender** **:** _Thanks for the concern babe_  

 **2:47** **AM** **, Jason:** _It’s a legitimate question_ _._  

 **2:47** **AM** **, unknown** **sender** **:** _well let's see_  

 **2:48** **AM** **:** _my ship just crashed_  

 **2:48** **AM** **:** _No one but you is hailing this frequency_  

 **2:48 AM:** _don't see any survivors besides me_  

 **2:49 AM:** _And_ _I'm the least prepared for this type of incident_  

Jason stared at the texts before him. He scrolled up, reread them, and scrolled down.  

 **2:51 AM, Jason:** _"Least prepared"?_  

 **2:52 AM, unknown sender:** _yeah._ _Im_ _a student on board for an experience scholarship program. I don’t have the same training everyone else did. So now_ _im_ _stuck. Alone. Here._  

 **2:54 AM, Jason:** _Describe "here"._  

Another astoundingly long bit of time passed. 

 **3:02 AM, unknown sender** **:** _right so pod came down in some kinda desert. Everything's white, ground is dry rock. Huge peak a few miles away. (or kilometers. Where are you from, ágnostos?) all weird and_ _symme_ _trical_ _, might not be natural. DPC suit says the peak is northeast, and in the SW are two huge smoking things. Cant seem them they are behind a hill. But I think_ _its_ _two pieces of the_ _Varia_. _...best case scenario_ _its_ _ONLY in 2 pieces. Crash sites look closer than the peak._  

 **3:02 AM:** _where go?_  

Jason was ninety-six—no, ninety-nine—ninety-nine point ninety-nine—percent sure that this was all a joke. But he couldn’t help feeling invested in this random guy's life. This kid was a student, so he was probably around Jason's age, Jason being nineteen. Probably twenty-one, or twenty-two if he was getting scholarships like that. 

What freaked Jason out wasn't the situation as a whole, but the fact that it seemed so real. Percy wasn't trying to be funny. Or overly horrifying. He presented it like Jason imagined a bitter, mildly shock-driven person would in that situation. 

He had to keep in touch. He moved to type out a response. 

- 

**_-Check the crash._  **

 

 _-Head for the peak._  


	2. dirwedd

**3:06 AM, Jason:** _Checking the Varia seems good enough. There could be other survivors._

**3:06 AM, unknown sender:** _fingers crossed_

Jason didn’t receive any other sort of response from Percy, so he wasn’t sure if Percy was typing some lengthy reply, or if he had already set off. Maybe Percy had turned off the transmitter, and, if that was the case, Jason felt strangely abandoned. (Like _he_ had any right to be.)

**3:14 AM:** _its not actually possible to cross my fingers in the DPC suit but just imagine it. then again you have no idea what i look like. anyway. Survivors or not theres gotta be some supplies. I got my stuff (myself, the transmitter, and a pretty rock i found) together and Im starting to head south now. Crash site looks around an hourish away. or whatever an hour is in metric. I’ll let you know once I’m there._

Jason was about to type out something in response—something encouraging, maybe along the lines of _“Go get ‘em, Space Tiger!”_ or _“Don’t forget to check in.”_ or perhaps _“I’m pretty sure I forgot to tell you my name, so, for future reference, it’s Jason.”_

Before he could send anything, his phone gave him another pop-up.

**Messenger’s device not receiving messages at this time. Queue message for later?**

Jason was pretty sure Percy had turned off his ability to receive any messages, maybe to conserve battery, maybe because he found Jason annoying. Regardless, it would be useless to queue anything. He plugged in his phone, trying to forget about anything on it for the moment and begin his day, because there was no way he was going to be able to _sleep,_ knowing that somewhere in the Universe at that very moment, a stranded, quirky, probably-young twenty-something person was taking his advice and heading towards a broken, smoking spaceship.

Waking up at three was just being ahead of the game.

Unfortunately, Jason also found himself astoundingly unable to complete basic tasks such as beginning the twenty-page reading he’d been assigned and had completely forgotten about, instead opting for getting his phone again, staring at the page of messages where nothing was new, and quickly running a few web searches.

Search number one: the _Varia_ (again). Jason didn’t find anything new except the most recent news that NASA had triangulated the place where the _Varia_ had crashed, finally. It was a place without a name, and a little over four months away by their fastest form of space travel. NASA was debating sending up a probe to go check the moon, because (the website hadn’t said this outright, but Jason could infer) anyone from the _Varia_ would most certainly be dead by the time anyone else got there if they weren’t already, and they didn’t want to waste the money on a manned mission if all they were going to do was collect wreckage.

Search number two: NASA’s scholarship program. Apparently there was one, although recently (Jason suspected because of the crash) the list of winners for the past few years had been taken down. Ever since the space program had gotten back funding, it had tried its best to endear itself to the people by interacting with them. Jason reasoned that this scholarship program was to make space travel seem easily attainable to the Generations of Tomorrow.

Search number three: Percy. Even if NASA had taken it off the very public parts of their websites, that didn’t mean that there wasn’t some heartless journalist writing about it, or some space fanatic blog talking about it. 

Sure enough, Jason almost immediately found a non-curated post on the University of Maryland (CP) site talking about how _“Perseus Jackson, known by most on UMCP campus as Percy, was originally an underdog in the NASA scholarship essay competition. He made a surprising breakthrough in his final thesis statement, getting him the needed recommendations to advance to the final. We’re so proud to have a UMCP student like Percy representing future space program members and employees”._

Jason then found Percy Jackson’s personal FaceBook account—well, part of it. Most of it was restricted. But at least Jason now knew some basic things about him.

For instance: Percy Jackson was twenty years old, and his birthday was August eighteenth. He lived in New York but was going to college in Maryland. He had astoundingly dark hair and skin for someone with such a pale mother (It only took Jason a few seconds of scrolling to find a post where Sally Jackson had commented.) and such green eyes. He was not in a relationship, but several of his photos featured the same blonde, serious-eyed girl over and over again. He had a link to an online journal about astronomy and extra-terrestrial life and another link to that girl’s Instagram. (Her name was Annabeth.)

Jason soon found that in the Instagram was public and that it mainly consisted of pictures of aesthetically pleasing handwriting, but that Percy still managed to appear in several posts. The astronomy/ET blog was about exactly what it sounded like, and the lasts twenty or so entries on it were all titled _“Training Log #”_ or a countdown to the day he left for the scholarship trip.

Jason started to feel a little ill, and he wasn’t quite sure if it was because now that Perseus Jackson had been humanized to him, the whole gravity of the situation was finally setting in, or because he still slightly suspected it was all fake, and the fact that someone would impersonate a guy who was probably dead was horrific.

A notification banner came down from the top of his screen. 

**3:48 AM, unknown sender:** _ok so 45 mins later and i don't seem any closer._

**3:49 AM:** _this is probably gonna take longer than i thought. I'm just kinda sitting and drowning in self pity right now_

Jason didn’t think it would be very polite to immediately respond with _I just spent the time since I last spoke with you stalking you,_ so he opted for something more concerned.

**3:49 AM, Jason:** _But you’re okay?_

**3:50 AM, unknown sender:** _Yeah yeah_

**3:50 AM:** _i mean besides my legs feeling like jello and stuff_

**3:50 AM:** _damn. now I'm just thinking about how much i want jello._

**3:51 AM:** _Yknow random earthling, space food fuckin sucks but i would so take it over my current entree, that being nothing_

**3:52 AM, Jason:** _How long do you think it’s going to take for you to get to the crash now?_

**3:53 AM, unknown sender:** _Shit I dunno_

**3:53 AM:** _Let you know when I get there?_

**3:54 AM, Jason:** _Talk to you then._

There was next to no stalking left for Jason to do, so he just stared at the ceiling, trying to comprehend that out of every person in the world, Percy had managed to contact him, Jason Grace, a nineteen-year-old responsible but floundering law major with anxiety issues and a tendency to grow emotionally attached to the animals he saw in circulating Internet memes. Right.

He had to tell someone about this.

Jason considered talking to Percy’s mom, or his not-girlfriend Annabeth Chase, but he figured that even if they _did_ believe him when he told them that their son/not-boyfriend was alive and _didn’t_ block him immediately, it would still be an unwanted drop-in that would be even worse if Percy turned out to get killed or kill himself within the next hour. Day. Week. Month. Four months. 

There were four months before the probe would get to Percy. If it even got sent at all.

Jason could tell NASA. Percy’s university. Percy’s blog’s followers. Anyone. He’d have to ask Percy himself first. Telling someone could make the whole thing seem like a hoax, and get it called off, and everyone would see Jason as some insensitive jerk and Percy would be forgotten about up there on that random moon and—

—And what if it was all fake, anyway?

He knew who he could definitely tell.

Piper McLean answered Jason’s phone call with a very confused, “Jay, it’s _four-thirty_.”

“Yeah. I know. But I have to talk to you. And it’s actually four thirty-two.”

He heard Piper’s exasperated in and outtake of breath. “Yeah. Sure. Let me move to the living room. Rachel’s asleep.” Rachel, Piper’s roommate in their rich-person apartment, seemed to always either be painting late at night or resting from painting early in the morning, so her being asleep at this hour was entirely up to chance.

After Piper’s scuffling had died down, Jason spoke again. “So, I met this guy.”

Piper sighed another tremendous sigh. “ _Jason Grace!_ Now is _not_ the time.”

“That’s not what I meant, Piper. It’s serious. I can’t really… God, I don’t know how to explain it. Like…” He sighed. Not nearly as fearfully as Piper. “It’s life or death, Pipes. And complicated.”

It was a lot harder to say _I met a stranded astronaut college student via random chance through my phone_ to Piper than he thought it would be.

“I don’t care if you met the goddamn love of your life, Grace, I was trying to sleep.”

“ _Piper_.” Jason did not often get angry. But it was happening. 

“Look,” Piper said. Her voice was still groggy. “I’ll meet you somewhere tomorrow, okay? Go to sleep, Jay.”

Like he would ever be able to do that.

“Yeah,” he said. 

“Love you. Can’t wait to hear about _this guy_.”

Piper hung up.

Jason returned to his bed and screamed as quietly as he could into the pillow.

-

Jason was, actually, mostly asleep when he phone lit up again. 

**5:30 AM, unknown sender:** _at long last, the Varia is in sight_

**5:30 AM:** _…_

**5:31 AM:** _whats left of it anyway_

Jason (essentially) scrambled to read and respond. He nearly couldn’t find his glasses next to his head on the pillow.

**5:31 AM, Jason:** _What’s it like? Damage report?_

**5:33 AM, unknown sender:** _seems to have cracked hard once it hit atmosphere. two major chunks._

**5:35 AM:** _ton of debris all around just to make it seem extra terrifying and post-apocalyptic. its working. I'm very terrified._

**5:36 AM, Jason:** _How… broken-y is it?_

**5:38 AM, unknown sender:** _heres your answer: flight deck is, like, eight miles (not really) away from the crew quarters. give me some adventure, where do I go first?_

**5:38 AM, Jason:** _‘Give me some adventure’? Like you don’t have enough?_

**5:40 AM, unknown sender:** _answer the question if one explodes when i walk in i want someone to feel responsible for my death_

**5:41 AM, Jason:** _Wow._

**5:41 AM:** _The crew quarters, I guess._

**5:42 AM, unknown sender:** _sweet. thats closer._

**5:44 AM, Jason:** _I figured that if there would be rations anywhere, they would be there._

**5:45 AM, unknown sender:** _youre probably right_

**5:49 AM:** _just got here. things are kinda messy so give me a bit to look through everything_

Jason, during the time Percy was scouting around the crew quarters, nearly fell asleep again, slumping his hands down onto his chest so that his phone vibrated on his neck when Percy finally texted him again.

**6:02 AM, unknown sender:** _so this wasn't really unexpected_

Jason felt that it wasn’t exactly morally correct to send something so vague as that.

**6:02 AM, Jason:** _Did you find anything?_

**6:03 AM, unknown sender:** _Yeah._

**6:06 AM:** _Hang on._

That was _definitely_ not morally correct. Jason had sunk to the level that he was pacing around his room at six in the morning.

**6:34 AM, unknown sender:** _Sorry I left you hanging_

**6:35 AM:** _Had to go puke my guts out_

**6:36 AM, Jason:** _What happened? Are you hurt?_

**6:38 AM, unknown sender:** _I'm not_

**6:38 AM:** _cant say the same about the rest of the crew_

**6:39 AM, Jason:** _What?_

**6:39 AM:** _What did you find?_

**6:46 AM, unknown sender:** _apparently there were some crew members pretty near the split in the ship’s hull. cant tell who they were or how many they're all kinda fused to the metal or i guess to each other. i really cant tell. and we might have lost some crew when we lost pressure_

**6:47 AM, Jason:** _Christ._

**6:48 AM, unknown sender:** _gimme a sec_

Jason couldn’t really think about what that would feel like. To be the only person on an entire mass floating in space, that had just found everyone else dead. To know you were completely alone. Percy Jackson was off suffering alone in space and Jason was about to have an existential crisis in starfish position on his bed with his jacked-up iPhone laying on his forehead.

There was such a long gap between messages that Jason started to get legitimately worried. Had Percy died from the same lack of pressure that had killed the rest of the crew? (Was that even how pressure worked? Jason was a law major, he didn’t know.) Had he given up hope on bothering to live with no one else there and killed himself? Had he broken or lost the transmitter? Would Jason ever find out?

His phone beeped.

**7:25 AM, unknown sender:** _Theres a sealed door in the back of the quarters. rest of the crew was behind it. so they're all accounted for, i guess._

**7:26 AM, Jason:** _And…?_

**7:27 AM, unknown sender:** _Dead. All of them._

Jason could practically hear the shocked flatness of Percy’s million-mile away voice. His voice that Jason had never even heard before, but of which he could still sense the breaking.

It was a shorter gap between messages that time, but Jason still felt its impact. It was like every time Percy didn’t immediately respond to him, he jumped to the worst possible conclusion. Maybe it was the lack of sleep.

**7:35 AM, unknown sender:** _I just dont know what to do._

Jason didn’t know what to do, either. What are you _supposed_ to do in that situation? What do you say to someone? Jason was typically good with words, but never in a close context. he couldn’t personally comfort someone. Not someone he’d never met, tons of lightyears away, dealing with something he’d never and would never experience. He didn’t think a fucking ‘hang in there’ would suffice. But he had to say _something_. He couldn’t have Percy thinking that _he’d_ left him, too.

**7:39 AM, Jason:** _I’m sorry, Percy._

He hoped to God he wouldn’t get the response of _for what?_ That Percy would understand that he knew it wasn’t his fault, and was just sharing his lament of the circumstance. 

But he already knew that Percy wasn’t an idiot.

**7:41 AM, unknown sender:** _I mean, thanks I think. I am too._

**7:44 AM:** _Should I, like, do something with the bodies? Does it even matter? What’s protocol for space death? I dont think I can dig graves in this rock…_

So, Percy was that type of person. The kind that compensated for shock and pain with attempts at humor. Jason would have to remember that for the future.

Jason really didn’t think he was qualified to be making those types of decisions.

 -

_-Honor the dead._

 

**_-Just keep moving._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ye im still working on etincelles trust me


	3. πλοίο

**8:03 AM, unknown sender:** _I cannot dig graves in this rock_

**8:04 AM:** _I’m just gonna leave it, sooner i move on the better_

**8:05 AM:** _Suns gonna go down in a few hours_

**8:06 AM:** _Actually I think thats the star we were going to orbit_

**8:07 AM:** _I don’t even remember its name_

**8:08 AM:** _Its kind of comforting to have a regular day and night schedule, though_

**8:09 AM:** _What time is it where you are, person?_

**8:10 AM:** _the transmitter says its 7:09 am back at headquarters_

**8:11 AM:** _Hey, person?_

**8:12 AM:** _Not to be needy, but speaking into the void is messing with my head_

**8:13 AM:** _So if you can hear me.._

**8:14 AM:** _God, are you even seeing these?_

**8:15 AM:** _I fucked up the transmitter didn’t i i knew i would fuck it up i knew it_

Jason woke up to a full screen of notifications, most of them from Percy. One was from Piper, saying he’d missed a call, but at that point: stranded astronaut took priority over sleep-deprived best friend.

**8:20 AM, Jason:** _I was asleep. Lame excuse, I know._

**8:22 AM, unknown sender:** _I think you actually gave me a heart attack, person_

**8:24 AM, Jason:** _Sorry, sorry. I’ll try my best not to leave you at the mercy of the void again. And my name’s Jason, by the way._

**8:27 AM, unknown sender:** _I kinda forgot I didn’t know your name, Jason. Now as for my survival_

**8:28 AM, Jason:** _Right. Sorry._

**8:34 AM, unknown sender:** _Way to the galley looks kind of hellish. only other options the lab. I'm scared of what ill find if i check on my rats, honestly_

Jason was caught between sending, _they still do experiments on rats?_ and telling Percy which way he should go.

**8:35 AM, Jason:** _Try the lab._

**8:36 AM, unknown sender:** _ok. gonna be a while. *just thought you should know*_

**8:36 AM, Jason:** _I’m sorry! (Also, good luck.)_

Jason took the time that Percy was off exploring ‘the lab’ to text Piper. Apparently, they were to meet at one o’ clock at the café across the library on campus, and he was to tell her exactly what was going on. They were to be no _ands, ifs,_ or _buts_ about it.

Jason then took the extra time he had (no, he did not spend part of it staring at his phone) to get ready for his life. He had a class in two hours, which he had not gone over his notes for the night before. 

Jason was typically a very responsible person. He had paid extra for his own room because he did not do well waiting for other people to hold up their ends of deals (also, they made him nervous), he actually knew how to study before he went to college, and he always set aside money that he could use for the school’s printer in case of emergencies.

But a goddamn _law_ degree?

The reason for this law degree was mainly Jason’s grandparents. They made it seem that, as a half-way successful Hollywood starlet, his mother had never done anything worthwhile. (Which, honestly, Jason mostly agreed with.) The only thing his grandmother said that Beryl Grace _had_ done right, was _“produce at least one decent human before you inevitably die of a cocaine overdose”_.

That decent human in question being Jason. (In opposition to his older sister.) So, if he went into anything even remotely creative, he was out of the Will. Which was a dilemma, because his mother had never written one so it all would just disperse when she inevitably died of a cocaine overdose and he never handled it.

At least he wasn’t stuck alone on a moon somewhere, right?

For a moment, Jason thought he might rather be so. Not alone, no. Maybe he could be stuck on the same moon with Percy. Percy would have company, he wouldn’t have to be a lawyer, and it could make an at-least-mildly successful homoerotic film, right? 

Jason was sitting on his kitchenette counter, drinking the remnants of a re-re-microwaved Starbucks beverage, when Percy next messaged him.

**9:14 AM, unknown sender:** _Ive got some good news and some bad news, Jason._

**9:15 AM, Jason:** _Hit me._

**9:16 AM, unknown sender:** _all my notes on rats? They're COMPLETELY FINE!_

**9:16 AM, Jason:** _What an incredible relief!_

**9:17 AM:** _And the bad news?_

**9:19 AM, unknown sender:** _rats are nowhere to be found and the cage is completely wrecked_

**9:20 AM, Jason:** _Are you going to take the notes? They could be useful, maybe… I don’t know space stuff, Percy._

**9:22 AM, unknown sender:** _Nah. When I die here I wanna leave a legacy. who knows, they could become the next space bible._

Jason did not like how earlier, it had been _if_ Percy died, and now it was _when._

**9:23 AM, Jason:** _The /next/ space Bible, huh?_

**9:26 AM, unknown sender:** _Mmhm. But. More important than space jesus, is the rat food i found. Happy thanksgiving Jason_

Jason took a moment to Google _rat food._ What he found was not exactly appetizing.

**9:27 AM, unknown sender:** _And hey, look at that! their water bottle survived. still half full._

**9:29 AM:** _Did you see that Jason? I called it half full. feeling more optimistic already._

**9:31 AM:** _Time for your council again: stick with rat pellets or go hunting for people food?_

**9:33 AM, Jason:** _You haven’t been to the galley yet, have you? Try looking for people-food there._

**9:34 AM, unknown sender:** _Aye._

Jason then did some more research to find out what was _in_ rat food. Could a young adult subsist on it for longer than one period of consumption? Or would Percy’s tastebuds suffer for naught and he would just die anyway as if he had no food in the first place?

The eventual verdict: some of the ingredients weren’t exactly five-star cuisine, but you wouldn’t keel over if you ate them.

**9:39 AM, unknown sender:** _The door is super stuck_

**9:42 AM:** _Fortunately i dont think were getting the deposit back on the Varia so i feel no remorse about fucking up this door with scrap metal_

**9:56 AM:** _I dont wanna throw away my optimistic trend but this is not happening_

**9:58 AM:** _Jason_

**9:58 AM:** _I was not made for this_

**9:59 AM:** _the high school bullies were right ill never amount to anything_

**10:00 AM:** _I cant even punch a door_

**10:01 AM, Jason:** _Not to sound like a complete anxious MomFriend, but are you actually losing morale? Because you can stop. Better to save energy, I guess._

**10:02 AM, unknown sender:** _Nah I’m laughing right now actually_

**10:03 AM:** _although thats maybe cause I’m going crazy_

**10:04 AM, Jason:** _Just keep trying for a few more minutes, okay?_

**10:05 AM, unknown sender:** _masochist._

**10:07 AM:** _wait no its sadist isn’t it_

**10:08 AM:** _anyway back to work_

Jason left for class at ten-fifteen, with no update from Percy. His phone was secure in his pocket, though, so as soon as Percy messaged him again, he would be able to answer. He ended up getting to the lecture hall early (please see previous citation on responsibility), and tucked himself into an empty office to call back Piper.

“Hey, McLean, we’re still on for today?” 

“Yeah,” she said, seeming surprised, almost as if she hadn’t expected him to remember.

“Hope twelve’s good with you, because that’s when my class ends.”

“Yeah,” she said again.

Jason stopped his oncoming speech for a moment as someone walked past the office. Before he could speak again, Piper cut him off.

“You okay? Seem nervous.” 

He laughed, and much to his surprise, he _did_ seem nervous. 

“Yeah. For good reason. See you.”

He hung up before any further questions could be asked.

Percy texted him again at ten twenty-three, seven minutes before his lecture started.

**10:23 AM, unknown sender:** _i pulled my shoulder out of its socket_

Jason’s heart sputtered, stopped, started again, and stopped once more. He typed out, _and…?_ before deleting it and waiting for Percy to elaborate on his own.

**10:27 AM, unknown sender:** _and it was totally worth it! because i am now both in extreme pain and enjoying some space chili and macaroni and drinking bottled water._

Jason’s heart slowly became used to beating again.

**10:29 AM, unknown sender:** _chili mac is kinda the worst thing I've ever eaten while also being the best_

**10:30 AM, Jason:** _Does it at least beat rat food? Also, my class is starting now. I’ll try to keep up._

**10:33 AM, unknown sender:** _Jason Jason Jason. Anything beats rat food. but chili will be gone soon, sadly_

**10:34 AM:** _then ill have to deal with my shoulder_

**10:35 AM:** _but that is a problem for three-minutes-from-now Percy_

**10:38 AM:** _if all goes well Jason, i will have found a place to sleep by the time your class is over_

**10:40 AM:** _but historically things have not been going very well_

_…_

**10:52 AM, unknown sender:** _problem time again_

Jason had taken a seat in the back of the hall on purpose. This is where all the other kids that couldn’t be bothered to pay attention sat, so no one really gave Jason a second look when he pulled out his phone.

**10:52 AM, Jason:** _Yup._

**10:54 AM, unknown sender:** _On top of it getting never-been-polluted levels of dark, it is also fucking freezing_

**10:55 AM:** _Here are my options as i see em_

**10:56 AM:** _I can stay in the wreckage with a roof over my head but probably freeze_

**10:56 AM:** _or i can go out back to the rector engine_

**10:58 AM:** _which i can tell is nice and toasty cause of the squiggly little heat lines coming off of it (look at that science-talk. i won a scholarship.)_

**10:59 AM, Jason:** _I don’t know, that seems kind of obvious to me. Squiggly heat lines, of course._

**11:00 AM, unknown messenger:** _yeah but theres an issue. radiation n stuff._

**11:02 AM:** _Look something up for me? Would 150ish rads kill me? DPC suit says thats about what its giving off._

Jason did the research, and what he found out was that Percy _probably_ wouldn’t die. However, a _Quora_ session on the matter wasn’t exactly convincing. 

**11:09 AM, Jason:** _Yeah, you should be fine._

**11:11 AM, unknown messenger:** _alrighty. if i wake up mutated I'm blaming you_

**11:12 AM, Jason:** _…Goodnight._

**11:12 AM, unknown messenger:** _what time is it? where you are?_

**11:13 AM, Jason:** _11:13_

**11:13 AM:** _AM, that is._

**11:15 AM, unknown messenger:** _Damn. Well ill try to wake up before you go to sleep but who knows. talk to you… when i talk to you i guess._

**11:16 AM, Jason:** _Yeah. Sleep well. Don’t mutate yourself or anything._

**11:17 AM, unknown messenger:** _i dont plan on it_

Jason finally saved Percy in his phone under the name _Percy,_ and put his phone in his pocket. He tried to figure out what in the lecture he’d missed before decided it really wasn’t worth it. He had to meet Piper in less than an hour, anyway. 

What the hell was he supposed to tell her?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look so the ship vs reactor was a choice in this, but seeing that if you chose ship percy would die, i decided to spare yall from such an early ending and make the choice for you. 
> 
> no choice in this chapter, but new installment coming soon :)


	4. selitys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i skipped all the boring deaths by making the decisions myself so now if yall kill percy itll be INTERESTING and that makes it all better doesnt it

Piper, as always, was a little over ten minutes late. Jason had been sitting in his side of the booth at the campus’ café (it was called _Cup,_ and advertised itself as a ‘tea bar’, which didn’t make much sense, as alcohol was prohibited on campus. Maybe it was a joke.) from the minutes of twelve-oh-two to twelve-twelve before Piper blew through the plexiglass doors.

Piper walked up to the counter and ordered something before she even started looking around for Jason. She slid into the booth a moment later, not asking which of the two paper, cardboard-zarf-ed cups was hers and just helping herself to one.

“ _So_.” Piper tipped her chin down as she drank, somehow managing not to spill anything, her kaleidoscope eyes suddenly shadowed and borderline-omniscient. “You’ve met the love of your life.”

She was being painfully sarcastic. Jason was almost excited to see the look on her face when he told her the situation.

(Side note: When Piper put her cup down, the lip of it was completely unstained. Jason could’ve sworn she’d been wearing lipstick. He’d never know.)

“Did you know NASA has a scholarship program?”

Piper cocked her head. “No, but it makes sense.”

Jason was typically a very business-like type of person. (Being the type of person who categorized people into clear _types_ was often that type of person.) But he was suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to just spit it out in the most shocking way possible. (If he was having a crisis, why couldn’t everyone else?)

“Did you know that the kid who won it is stranded out in space and NASA has no idea and the rest of the crew is dead because of the mission’s failure?”

Piper stared at him. 

He said, “Because, I did.”

Piper continued to stare at him.

He said, “Seriously.”

Piper continued to stare.

“Piper?”

“…Are you okay?”

“I’m serious.”

Piper reached across the table to gently place a few fingertips on Jason’s jaw as she scrutinized his expression. “Huh. Are you getting outside? Drinking enough water?”

Jason pulled Piper’s hand off his face. “ _Piper._ I’m serious. Look, just—” he sighed and wrestled his phone from his pocket. “— _Look_.”

Upon turning it on and showing the screen to Piper, Jason found that he had missed Percy’s last text, from almost an hour before.

**11:20 AM, Percy:** _Heres to a better tomorrow, Jason._

Piper appraised the screen. Her voice was still substantially sarcastic when she asked, “One, who’s Percy? And, two, why was his day so shitty?”

“One, Percy is the guy. The scholarship one. And, two, his day was shitty because he’s the guy. The scholarship one.”

Piper stared for just a few more moments before reaching for Jason’s phone and scrolling viciously up.

“What the hell _is_ this, Jason?”

“I told you. It’s a science student who won NASA’s scholarship—Percy—who’s mission crashed and he’s stuck on some moon as the only survivor. And I’m the only one he could contact.”

“I don’t know, Grace…” Piper kept scrolling. “The way he talks seems legit, but… the whole situation sounds like bullshit.”

“I know, but—but I don’t think it is, honestly. I did some research, and I think it’s really him.”

Piper handed his phone back. “Regardless, if you’re that sure, you should tell someone. I mean, someone besides me.” 

“I haven’t really asked him if he wants me to—”

“— _Asked_ him? You don’t need to ask.”

Jason was going to ask. He didn’t care to tell Piper that.

-

**2:48 PM, Percy:** _Hey Jason?_

**2:49 PM, Jason:** _Mm._

**2:52 PM, Percy:** _trying to sleep next to a rector engine is not as relaxing as it sounds believe it or not_

**2:53 PM, Jason:** _Oh? Wouldn’t have guessed._

**2:56 PM, Percy:** _Im too fragile for snark right now. (thats rare trust me) what are you doing?_

Jason was once again sitting on furniture not meant for sitting on. He typed back, _Not doing stuff I should be doing, and instead sitting on my kitchen table._

**2:58 PM, Percy:** _its important to do that sometimes_

**2:59 PM:** _you up to talk?_

**2:59 PM, Jason:** _Always. What’s up?_

**3:00 PM, Percy:** _nothing new. this place is just… god._

**3:01 PM, Jason:** _I’m intrigued. Good ‘god’ or bad ‘god’? Elaborate._

**3:04 PM, Percy:** _just insane. Theres nothing on the ground. Its all dead and rock and empty. but theres so many stars. and they dont even make a dent in the darkness yknow? theres just so many and they dont mean anything._

**3:05 PM:** _i feel like you might think Im trying to be deep but I'm not_

**3:05 PM:** _theres just a lot of fucking stars._

**3:06 PM, Jason:** _Is there anywhere on Earth that it reminds you of?_

**3:07 PM, Percy:** _not that I've ever been to_

**3:08 PM:** _maybe this place isnt that bad_

**3:09 PM, Jason:** _Is your brain feeling radiated?_

**3:11 PM, Percy:** _no mushy organs yet i think. its kinda nice just lying here._

**3:12 PM:** _what makes up your earthling existence jason?_

**3:13 PM, Jason:** _I don’t know. Usual, boring stuff, I guess._

**3:15 PM, Percy:** _someone who recognizes the importance of kitchen table sitting? boring? impossible._

How was he supposed to start? _Well, I’m a law major whose mother lives in California, but I’m going to school in New York. (City.) I’ve never done anything important with my life nor ever will I, because I’m a law major whose mother lives in California, but I’m going to school in New York._

_(City.)_

**3:18 PM, Jason:** _You know. I’m going to school in New York City. Sophomore._

**3:20 PM, Percy:** _Whatre you going to school for?_

**3:20 PM, Jason:** _Law._

**3:21 PM, Percy:** _dyou like it?_

**3:21 PM, Jason:** _It’s alright._

**3:24 PM, Percy:** _Im gonna go to sleep again now. Sorry if i wake you up in the middle of the night. you can feel free to ignore me then._

**3:25 PM, Jason:** _Will do._

Jason would feel incredibly angry with himself if he did ignore Percy, but he didn’t feel the need to raise an argument.

-

Jason was pretty sure wherever Percy was didn’t have twenty-four hour days, because the nights and days seemed to go by a lot faster than they did on Earth.

Percy messaged him again at five o’ clock saying it was sunrise. (Star-rise?)

**4:59 PM, Percy:** _Morning. if its morning. its morning here. i’m not dead!_

**4:59 PM, Jason:** _!!!_

**5:03 PM, Percy:** _Did wake up with a horrible taste in my mouth though. Rinsed with some water, spat and found out my spit was green. new discoveries every day._

**5:04 PM, Jason:** _Not to sound like a hypochondriac or anything, but do you think that could be radiation sickness?_

**5:05 PM, Percy:** _Fuck. you think?_

**5:05 PM:** _I dont feel bad or anything_

**5:07 PM:** _thought it was just trace elements in the atmosphere or something_

**5:08 PM, Jason:** _You’re saying science words but all I know is that your saliva is green. That could be considered alarming, Percy._

**5:10 PM, Percy:** _i actually woke up feeling really good this morning, damn it!_

**5:11 PM:** _aside from the whole lost in space thing obviously_

**5:13 PM:** _Fuck. I hope its not fucking radiation poisoning. gonna be hard to find a marrow donor anywhere around here._

**5:14 PM, Jason:** _I just looked up the symptoms and ‘green saliva’ doesn’t seem to be anywhere on there. Sorry for scaring you._

**5:16 PM, Percy:** _pfffft what? no i only thought i was gonna fucking die_

**5:16 PM, Jason:** _…Sorry. Do you know the conversion from rads to GY?_

**5:17 PM, Percy:** _divide by 100. Why._

**5:18 PM, Jason:** _Because, according to a few sites, you might have mild radiation sickness. But it’s all in GY so I wasn’t sure._

**5:18 PM:** _You said around 150 rads, right?_

**5:19 PM, Percy:** _Thats 1.5 GY then_

**5:19 PM, Jason:** _Well, shit. You can expect some mild nausea and vomiting in two to four hours, Percy._

**5:20 PM, Percy:** _oh fuck off_

**5:21 PM, Jason:** _I’m not kidding. I’m sorry I didn’t see this last night. But you would’ve died if you didn’t sleep near the engine. I did the math for that, too._

**5:22 PM, Percy:** _everything just wants to fuckin kill me doesnt it_

**5:23 PM, Jason:** _Everything there, anyway. Speaking of, you might experience a slight ‘aversion to food’ for the next couple days._

**5:24 PM, Percy:** _dont have much with me anyway_

**5:25 PM:** _and just cause you said that, its breakfast time_

**5:26 PM:** _I have maple sausage rations_

**5:27 PM:** _its disgusting._

Jason, who had forgotten to plan for dinner, decided not to comment.

**5:35 PM, Percy:** _alrighty. Ive got about five hours of daylight left, and its plan time._

**5:37 PM:** _should be enough time to check out that peak and make it back just after nightfall_

**5:38 PM:** _Im heading out. Keep you posted._

Jason was now faced with three tasks that felt like, to him, at that moment, just as difficult as surviving alone a barren moon: laundry, homework, and acquiring dinner.

He was halfway through the first homework assignment at the library (at least, he thought it was halfway. He could never really be sure) when Percy messaged him again.

**6:32 PM, Percy:** _back at where my pod came down. looks like it moved overnight. wind caught it i guess and moved it like ten feet._

**6:35 PM, Jason:** _Strong wind._

_-_

**7:12 PM, Percy:** _Houston, we have a problem._

**7:13 PM, Jason:** _The answer is seven. Or ‘clockwise’._

**7:13 PM, Percy:** _Not this time I'm afraid_

**7:15 PM:** _my old path was blocked off. i was going around this shallow canyon but i hit this huge rock. way too big to go over. dyou think i should back out or try another path?_

**7:16 PM, Jason:** _I mean, trying to find another way around couldn’t hurt. Just don’t do anything stupid._

**7:18 PM, Percy:** _Ive been told one of my major flaws is not seeing or caring about the difference between smart and stupid decisions but ill give it a shot_

_-_

**7:29 PM, Percy:** _Jason i dont like this_

**7:30 PM:** _theres no way around this thing._

**7:31 PM:** _Jason?_

**7:32 PM:** _Im going back out._

_-_

**8:19 PM, Percy:** _Im having one of those issues that only people stranded in space can have_

**8:21 PM:** _Im on the edge of a huge crater. like, so big that if i weren't in danger of death via freezing my tits off i would take a second to be in awe_

**8:22 PM:** _but its like right in the middle of my path_

**8:23 PM:** _so i can walk around the edge in a semicircle, or i can try to go down and cut straight across_

**8:24 PM:** _What say you?_

**8:29 PM:** _Im really not liking this lets ignore Percy trend_

**8:32 PM:** _tell you what. Im gonna go around, because i cant climb for shit and I'm just feeling shitty and dont want to climb things ANYWAY, but I'm gonna go clockwise. so. when i die because i went clockwise, it was YOUR fault for ignoring me and I'm gonna be DEAD and youre gonna be SAD._

**8:34 PM:** _im sorry if you cant respond because youre at your grandmas funeral or something but i am STUCK ON THE GODDAMN MOON._

_-_

Jason, doing homework on his bed, thought, _I wonder why Percy hasn’t talked to me recently,_ and went to get his phone. Jason then realized, _I do not have my phone._

Retracing his steps for the day back to the library took him until almost nine o’ clock, but he got there eventually.

Scrolling through the increasingly more annoyed messages sent to him from Percy, he began to wonder why all the important things happened while he was not there.

**8:54 PM, Jason:** _I might’ve left my phone at the library. Sorry about that._

**8:55 PM, Percy:** _its cool_

**8:55 PM:** _just going a little crazy out here with just my own thoughts_

**8:55 PM, Jason:** _Understandable. Anything happen while I was gone?_

**8:56 PM, Percy:** _youll never guess. I'm still walking around this fucking crater!_

**8:57 PM:** _so… conversation. right. Have *you* ever walked around a giant crater?_

**8:57 PM, Jason:** _Can’t say that I have, (un?)fortunately._

**8:58 PM, Percy:** _Fortunately is correct Jason_

**8:59 PM:** _anyway. Opposite edge is in sight. I'm gonna grit my teeth and keep trucking_

**9:00 PM:** _Thanks for checking in. Talk in a bit._

_-_

**9:09 PM, Percy:** _so that wasn't so bad._

**9:09 PM:** _and you’ll never guess what i tripped over like 50 yds back_

**9:10 PM, Jason:** _In general, I don’t like surprises, and Space Surprises seem worse, if I’m being honest._

**9:11 PM, Percy:** _Not sure if this was bad or not_

**9:12 PM:** _It was metal. took me a while to dig it up. still dont know what it is._

**9:13 PM, Jason:** _Like, naturally-formed metal?_

**9:14 PM, Percy:** _so i dont know what it is but i know its not that_

**9:14 PM:** _anyway I'm on the other side of the crater now so ill keep north_

_-_

**9:18 PM, Percy:** _so heres something_

**9:18 PM:** _theres a ridge over on this side of the crater_

**9:19 PM:** _with more metal. on the other side of the ridge_

**9:19 PM:** _is a spaceship_

**9:20 PM, Jason:** _This is going to sound really stupid, but I’ll ask anyway: a happy spaceship or a Varia-esque spaceship?_

**9:21 PM, Percy:** _varia esque. verrrry varia esque. a lot smaller._

**9:22 PM:** _i just wanna stay away from it and whatever brought it down_

**9:23 PM:** _i mean, the engine looks like it was chopped off with scissors. thats not normal._

**9:24 PM, Jason:** _There could be supplies in it. Maybe even more than the Varia, if it’s less melted. And there’s probably nothing bad in it. You’re the only thing here, remember? So you should go._

**9:24 PM, Percy:** _Yeah, its less melted. but i dont like it. It doesnt seem dangerous, really, but bad feelings man. Bad feelings._

**9:25 PM, Jason:** _…Then, don’t go._

**9:26 PM, Percy:** _Sup to you._

**9:27 PM, Jason:** _That’s a cop-out._

_-_

 

** _-Explore the wreckage._ **

 

_-Stay clear of it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> curiosity killed the cat but then again so did being a fuckin wimp so choose wisely friends


	5. iactus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i listened to a bunch of old dodie music while writing this so hopefully its not as ANGSTY or DEPRESSING as the last couple chapters. honestly though if depressing angst is ever justified in my stories it's this one.  
> so enjoy  
> (also, sorry about the gratuitous profanity in this chapter. i curse a lot, my percy curses a lot, and my percy in this situation definitely curses a lot. so. sorry if you dont like naughty language.)

**9:28 PM, Jason:** _It can’t hurt to go in, right? You could find some cool stuff._

**9:29 PM, Percy:** _I could make a booty joke here but I'm too annoyed_

**9:29 PM:** _But I'm going in anyway._

**9:30 PM:** _For the record: I’M AGAINST THIS. if i get serial killed in there its on you_

**9:31 PM:** _even if i get like non serially maimed ill be pissed_

**9:33 PM, Jason:** _If things start to get bad, I won’t hold it against you if you leave._

**9:34 PM, Percy:** _well now that you've said that I'm determined._

**9:34 PM:** _fuck you._

**9:35 PM, Jason:** _If you don’t mind me distracting you while you climb, putting you treacherously close to peril, who do you want me to tell? About you, I mean._

**9:36 PM:** _I kind of stalked you a couple days ago. I have your mom’s FaceBook, if you want me to say anything. Or, if you want me to talk to professionals or something._

**9:37 PM, Percy:** _I am stopping to respond, not because I'm afraid to keep climbing_

**9:37 PM:** _depends, jason. What has anyone said about me?_

**9:38 PM:** _If anything at all_

**9:39 PM, Jason:** _Well, NASA was debating sending a probe that would scan for any life. Unmanned._

**9:40 PM, Percy:** _like a probe i could come back on or?_

**9:40 PM, Jason:** _Hold on. Keep walking while I look it up._

**9:42 PM:** _Yeah. You’d be able to come back. And, apparently, they’re sending it on Friday. Or, they plan to. “If the weather is acceptable.”_

**9:43 PM, Percy:** _Thats two days from now_

**9:43 PM, Jason:** _Indeed. Verdict?_

**9:44 PM, Percy:** _I mean_

**9:44 PM:** _I dont wanna get my hopes up_

**9:44 PM:** _but i cant help it_

**9:44 PM:** _I guess_

**9:45 PM:** _no. Dont tell anyone._

**9:45 PM:** _if theyre sending the probe so soon its gonna get here in four months anyway cause thats as fast as we can go_

**9:46 PM:** _and not to be a pessimist, but ill probably die before then_

**9:47 PM:** _so no use in telling anyone that knows me and getting them excited just for the probe to show up and find me dead_

Jason couldn’t help thinking that that way of thinking was morbid, but noble. He had hoped that, four months from then, Percy would be neither dead _nor_ marooned on a giant space rock. But that was both emotional, wishful thinking, and mathematically impossible.

**9:48 PM, Jason:** _Okay._

**9:48 PM:** _Yeah._

**9:48 PM:** _Makes sense._

**9:49 PM:** _Anyway. What’s going on with you right now?_

**9:49 PM, Percy:** _ridge was surprisingly easy to climb. maybe it was all the talk about me dying._

**9:51 PM:** _ok so the hull is fucked up. but the metals not too rusted meaning its fairly new. also theres some writing on the side that i think is some form of chinese._

**9:52 PM:** _so the feelings i am experiencing right now have 3 possible causes_

**9:52 PM:** _evil maple sausage rations_

**9:53 PM:** _radiation poisoning_

**9:53 PM:** _or the worst fear I've ever experienced_

**9:54 PM, Jason:** _You can always go back._

**9:56 PM:** _Percy?_

**9:59 PM:** _Look, I’m sorry if you got serial murdered._

**10:00 PM:** _I’ll wait. I guess._

Jason felt less worried that Percy was hurt and more _certain_ that he was hurt combined with a feeling that was something close to guilt, because Percy had made it very clear that he hadn’t wanted to go near the _Varia: Biblia et Orientali_.

**10:03 PM, Percy:** _Sorry. Sorry. Sorry._

**10:04 PM:** _All of the previous 3 things listed above could very well lead to me vomiting again, and did, so i still dont know which one it is_

**10:05 PM:** _i mean its a little late for the radiation but god_

**10:06 PM:** _why does it hurt so much?_

**10:06 PM:** _and why was it so sudden?_

**10:07 PM:** _One sec._

Maybe it was a weird thing to think, but Jason actually kind of wanted to be there with Percy while he was retching on that moon, if only to sit and look on with pity. (Not that he really wanted to _see_ it, but… well, it was hard to explain.)

**10:08 PM, Percy:** _Ok. airlock iris is just big enough for me to get through. I'm going in_

**10:09 PM:** _ah its dark as fuck in here_

**10:10 PM:** _of course it is_

**10:10 PM:** _gotta keep going. Chris Columbus didn't discover America by turning back did he_

**10:11 PM, Jason:** _Christopher Columbus was also a racist._

**10:11 PM, Percy:** _True true. Ok. switching on the DPCs headlamp_

**10:12 PM, Jason:** _How long does that thing last?_

**10:12 PM, Percy:** _guess well find out_

**10:13 PM:** _look i didn't do my shoulder any favors by squeezing through that door_

**10:13 PM:** _and my head/stomach still seem to hate me_

**10:14 PM, Jason:** _If there’s no immediate danger of you going unconscious, though, I’d like a damage report of the ship._

**10:15 PM, Percy:** _needy fuck_

**10:15 PM:** _looks like the ship was shaken around pretty bad_

**10:15 PM, Jason:** _How bad, exactly?_

**10:16 PM, Percy:** _the stuff thats all over the floor is hard to pick through_

**10:16 PM:** _instrument board was smashed to splinters_

**10:17 PM:** _I believe the splinters were then smashed to smithereens_

**10:17 PM, Jason:** _Do you see anything helpful?_

**10:18 PM, Percy:** _yeah i was hoping there was a distress beacon but_

**10:18 PM:** _but_

**10:18 PM:** _beacno_

**10:18 PM, Jason:** _Percy._

**10:19 PM, Percy:** _Anyway_

**10:19 PM:** _Looks like I'm in some form of passthrough. East or west hall?_

**10:19 PM, Jason:** _Aren’t they the same?_

**10:20 PM, Percy:** _sweet naive jason_

**10:20 PM:** _going W_

**10:21 PM:** _turning left we go down the lovely (no) and spacious (lies) west hallway_

**10:21 PM:** _on either side of me is a sealed door_

**10:22 PM, Jason:** _Can you open either of them?_

**10:22 PM, Percy:** _nah. no power. but give me a minute_

**10:23 PM:** _huh. thats fucked up._

**10:23 PM:** _compass still says Im going N_

**10:24 PM, Jason:** _Maybe the compass doesn’t work in space? You don’t have the poles or anything._

**10:24 PM, Percy:** _It was working *before*_

**10:24 PM, Jason:** _Just… keep going, Percy._

**10:25 PM, Percy:** _I dont like that little … , Jason._

**10:25 PM:** _I would be SO PISSED watching myself in a horror movie right now_

**10:25 PM:** _cant believe I'm doing this_

**10:26 PM:** _shit. headlamp just flickered._

**10:26 PM, Jason:** _Well, keep going. Faster, than, I guess._

**10:27 PM, Percy:** _great advice. Youre doing something stupid? Just do it faster!_

**10:27 PM:** _Yknow sometimes I really hate you._

**10:28 PM, Jason:** _I would endearingly say, “I hate you, too,” but I feel like were not quite yet at that stage of friendship._

**10:29 PM, Percy:** _im taking this time to say: we are. i think you have to be, doing what we've done. or. I've done. you witnessed. kinda._

**10:29 PM:** _Especially cause if i die in the next few minutes i want to have been talking to my friend_

**10:29 PM:** _SPEAKING OF WHICH my headlamp is freaking the fuck out_

**10:30 PM, Jason:** _Here’s some more good advice: Walk faster(er)._

**10:30 PM, Percy:** _…hilarious. the door is just barely open enough for me to get through._

**10:31 PM:** _looks like a sickbay_

**10:31 PM, Jason:** _Is there anything particularly interesting?_

**10:34 PM, Percy:** _holy fuck yes there is something particularly interesting_

**10:34 PM:** _i found a medkit_

**10:35 PM:** _with painkillers_

**10:35 PM:** _i can stop suffering_

**10:36 PM:** _i would ask you opinion on whether these are safe but fuck you jason I'm taking one_

**10:37 PM:** _shit shit shIT SHIT SHIT_

**10:37 PM:** _headlamp went out_

**10:37 PM:** _JASON_

**10:37 PM:** _is this because i said fuck you because I'm SORRY_

**10:37 PM:** _Jason jason jason help_

**10:38 PM, Jason:** _Okay, one, allow me time to type things, please. Two, relax. You can leave if you want, but I don’t recommend it. It’s getting dark now, right?_

**10:38 PM, Percy:** _yep. fuck._

**10:38 PM:** _oh hey but who woulda thought_

**10:39 PM:** _I just tripped over a box of glow rods_

**10:39 PM:** _haaaaaa im an idiot_

**10:39 PM:** _theres like ten I'm taking them all theyre mine_

**10:40 PM, Jason:** _So, Prometheus, you’re still up for exploring?_

**10:40 PM, Percy:** _hell yeah i have a million fuckin glow rods_

**10:45 PM:** _HOLY FUCK_

**10:46 PM, Jason:** _Good holy fuck or bad holy fuck? What’s going on?_

**10:46 PM:** _Like, more glow rods? Or, like, the expiration date of those pills?_

**10:47 PM:** _Cliffhangers aren’t very fun when you could actually be dead._

**10:48 PM:** _Percy?_

Jason knew that Percy sometimes took a rather long while to respond. Jason also knew that Percy had already, on that day, disappeared for a significant amount of time to vomit.

**10:49 PM, Percy:** _Yeah. Im here._

**10:50 PM, Jason:** _What happened? (What’s happening?)_

**10:50 PM, Percy:** _I heard something, like a scuttling noise_

**10:51 PM:** _and i know this sounds like bs but i turned and i saw something_

**10:51 PM:** _like. something. glowing green._

**10:52 PM:** _lots of little somethings actually. close to the ground. glowing and crawling. and fucking scuttling_

**10:52 PM:** _I dont think I'm alone here_

**10:52 PM:** _ihatethisihatethisihatethisihatethis_

**10:53 PM, Jason:** _Do you know what it was? Like, besides something “glowing and crawling”? Because finding out seems like a good idea._

**10:53 PM, Percy:** _youre right i dont wanna not know_

**10:54 PM:** _but i also dont wanna die_

**10:54 PM:** _I venture_

Jason wasn’t sure if people got more reckless (and, frankly, more stupid) when they were alone in dangerous situations, but he couldn’t help noticing how much he admired Percy’s bravery. Granted, the kid got scared when Jason ignored his texts for more than ten minutes, but that was understandable. Courage required fuel. Jason was just pretty sure that in any of the situations he’d (kind of) witnessed Percy go through, he’d end up crying or pissing himself.

_-_

**10:58 PM, Percy:** _so not true what they say_

**10:58 PM:** _in space you can definitely hear yourself scream_

**10:59 PM:** _and its kind of embarrassing_

**10:59 PM, Jason:** _Why are we screaming? What’s to scream about?_

**11:00 PM, Percy:** _I tripped._

**11:00 PM:** _over a little generator!_

**11:00 PM, Jason:** _Sounds like dumb luck._

**11:01 PM, Percy:** _i am not going to complain about surviving off dumb luck_

**11:01 PM:** _so im calling this mission a success_

**11:01 PM:** _but I'm also calling it finished_

**11:02 PM:** _time for me and my new best friend the generator to get the hell out of the nightmare ship_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no question again. but a choice comes with tomorrow's update ^-^


	6. täuschung

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soz this is so short
> 
> but depending on what yall choose the next chapter could be shorter

**11:06 PM, Percy:** _Jason. i might not know much about this moon but something weird is going on._

**11:07 PM, Jason:** _Yeah? (Also, you’re okay, right? You got out of the Nightmare Ship alright?)_

**11:07 PM, Percy:** _Im good. better than good_

**11:07 PM:** _painkillers and generators glow rods and stuff_

**11:08 PM:** _but i thought i had the star cycle down, like star rise/set happens every 6 hrs_

**11:08 PM:** _it should be totally dark right now and its not?_

**11:09 PM:** _like its been dusk for a couple hours now_

**11:09 PM:** _the extra daylight is nice but…_

**11:09 PM, Jason:** _You don’t see anything that could be causing it?_

**11:10 PM, Percy:** _There are no comets hurtling towards this moon, no everything looks completely normal_

**11:10 PM, Jason:** _Maybe the orbit’s just messed up. (Is that how orbits work?)_

**11:10 PM, Percy:** _i mean an orbit could work like that_

**11:11 PM:** _it just doesnt make sense_

**11:11 PM:** _cant think about it right now though_

**11:11 PM, Jason:** _Right. Plans. What’s going on?_

**11:12 PM, Percy:** _Ive got a long northward hike up to that weird peak_

**11:12 PM:** _I can see a few more craters in my direct path, but smaller than the one before_

**11:13 PM:** _long hike though. would it be smart to eat before i go?_

**11:13 PM, Jason:** _Yeah, I think so. If you’re hungry, eat. Isn’t that a survival thing? Like, “don’t conserve your stuff, just in case you die”?_

**11:14 PM, Percy:** _Ill try not to conserve my rat pellets and bottled water_

**11:14 PM, Jason:** _Be careful, though, because I don’t know if your maybe-radiation-maybe-fear sickness is still there. Painkillers won’t fix it._

**11:15 PM, Percy:** _i think its over. cause my shoulder hurts but internally i feel fine_

**11:16 PM:** _so I've got the generator, my new best friend, with me and i love it to death_

**11:16 PM:** _but do i wanna drag it all the way to that peak with me?_

**11:17 PM:** _i could just leave it here and get it when i come back_

**11:17 PM:** _would ya look at that. i assumed id be able to come back._

**11:18 PM, Jason:** _I think just leaving it would be best. It’ll still be there. There’s no point in expending the extra energy to bring it up there._

**11:19 PM, Percy:** _Yeah. ok. either i come back and its there, or i dont come back in which case i dont need it anyway_

**11:19 PM:** _Or I come back and it disappeared_

**11:19 PM, Jason:** _In which case we have bigger problems._

**11:19 PM, Percy:** _indeed_

**11:21 PM:** _Welp im just burning daylight now_

**11:21 PM:** _and I'm not sure how much of it i have left_

**11:21 PM:** _im setting off_

**11:21 PM:** _Talk to you in a bit_

Jason had been thinking about something for a few hours by then. 

He had done some research (along with his stalking) into DPC suits, which lead him to know that their text transmitters were imbedded in a slide-out of the sleeve, like a removable, credit-card-sized bit of circuitry. He had also learned that the suits had a _new and intuitive_ (!) microphone and comm. system put directly into the seams of the neckline. 

(The article had been written by the person that had developed them, and that person had been very excited to talk about all of the technological advancements DPC suits had made in opposition to the more traditional, bulkier space-suit.)

(Granted, if Jason had developed the DPC suit, he’d probably be very excited to talk about all of its features, too.)

He was wondering if he could (Well, not he. He’d probably convince Leo to do it.) call Percy’s comm. system, seeing that it was connected to his text-based transmitter.

He’d have to ask Percy about it, about how it would work and if it would even be acceptable at all. He had just figured it would work better for the times when Percy disappeared for ages, doing something like freak out over crawling, scuttling, glowing green things.

Jason still didn’t know what to think of those—the crawling, scuttling, glowing green things. They could have been a hallucination, although he didn’t like the idea of Percy having hallucinations. It could’ve been radiation from something, although Jason didn’t know if radiation actually made things glow green. It could’ve been an extra-terrestrial species. It could’ve been fucking aliens.

Perhaps he was yet again being a hypochondriac—relating completely unconnected things because of a small hunch and the need to see similarities—but Jason immediately remembered Percy’s green saliva.

Glowing green maybe-aliens, green saliva. He just pointed that out to himself in his head, then shoved it as far back as he could manage. Then he went to check in with Percy, but it turned out that Percy had already messaged him.

**11:57 PM, Percy:** _So id been waiting to tell you this just so i could be totally sure_

**11:58 PM:** _but my DPC suits compass is completely useless_

**11:58 PM:** _im walking around the perimeter of a crater and its just going everywhere_

**11:59 PM, Jason:** _Do you think that’s a serious problem? Like, could it screw anything up?_

**12:00 AM, Percy:** _it could. i could keep going by sight, but if I'm being honest, this is kinda messing with my head, J._

**12:01 AM:** _it just makes me really nervous and i dont know why_

(Jason could relate to that.)

**12:02 AM, Jason:** _Is it bad enough that you want to go back and try again later?_

**12:03 AM, Percy:** _the winds are calm for the first time in hours so if i wanted to trace my steps and go back now would be the best time_

**12:03 AM:** _but what do you think, jason?_

_-_

 

_-Keep heading for the peak._

 

** _-Turn back while you can._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this decision is important.
> 
> curiosity killed the cat but then again so did being too cocksure
> 
> (also i dont wanna kill the mood but if you are a dirty cheater and want everything to be ok with no sense of suspense whatsoever, first of all, youre a nerd, and second of all, you can find the answers to what you should decide online but thats for *cheaters*)


	7. rhuddin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soz this is so short/late, gonna try to update with a choice chapter tomorrow (it was new years eve, and school started today, so... im suffering)
> 
> also, i watched starkid's new musical yesterday, called firebringer. it has prehistoric bisexual girls and the music is amazing its so greattttt (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmVuNlu0LCk )

**12:04 AM, Jason:** _Getting lost in the freezing-cold dark doesn’t seem like the best idea to me. I say go back._

**12:04 AM, Percy:** _Yeah. ok. long as i see my footprints I'm good_

**12:05 AM:** _when those disappear i have landmarks_

**12:05 AM:** _if the star stays frozen (???) ill make it back to the varia a little after dark_

**12:06 AM:** _once I'm there i can build a compass. i think i remember how to do that._

**12:07 AM, Jason:** _I can look it up while you walk, if you want._

**12:07 AM, Percy:** _Thatd be great_

**12:08 AM:** _anyway enough talkin. no time for chattin. not even enough time for puttin the g at the end of words._

**12:09 AM, Jason:** _Good luck. Stay safe._

**12:10 AM, Percy:** _back to hikin_

_-_

**1:30 AM, Percy:** _back at the nightmare ship_

**1:30 AM:** _never thought id be glad to see this again_

**1:31 AM, Jason:** _Is it still light?_

**1:31 AM, Percy:** _Barely. star has just started setting. Generators right where i left it_

**1:32 AM:** _from here if i remember correctly its 4 hours back to the varia_

**1:32 AM:** _which means its probably smarter to make camp here_

**1:33 AM:** _god i hate my life_

**1:35 AM:** _so im back inside. the only opening in this thing is the porthole i climbed in through. and theres a ton of stuff lying around that i can use to warm myself and stop up that opening. i really dont think its safe to sleep next to a generator again._

**1:36 AM, Jason:** _Sounds like a plan._

**1:36 AM, Percy:** _Im headed to the east hall. everyone loves a good hallway excursion._

**1:40 AM:** _its the same except the door at the end is just barely open_

**1:41 AM:** _i cant get through but i can see its a tiny galley_

**1:41 AM, Jason:** _Anything particularly exciting?_

**1:42 AM, Percy:** _theres so much shit everywhere. MRE packets are pretty important. I'm way too tired to bash my way through that door tonight, but the idea of eating something other than rat pellets is a pretty good one_

**1:42 AM, Jason:** _I think it makes more sense to sleep now, get up early, bash some doors, and set off on a peak adventure._

**1:43 AM, Percy:** _Yeah. I like that idea. I'm gonna go exploring in the main hall for sleep supplies_

_-_

**1:58 AM, Percy:** _theres enough crap in here to build myself a jaunty robot companion_

**1:59 AM:** _and if i had the know how i probably would_

**1:59 AM:** _not that youre not great, j_

**2:00 AM, Jason:** _Do you have enough stuff to not freeze?_

**2:00 AM, Percy:** _oh yeah. I'm just looking for other stuff now. i found a generator in here so who knows_

**2:01 AM, Jason:** _Having any luck?_

**2:01 AM, Percy:** _Nah not really most everything is broken_

**2:03 AM:** _ok i spoke too soon_

**2:03 AM:** _theres a proximity alarm_

**2:04 AM, Jason:** _Are you going to set it up before you go to sleep?_

**2:05 AM, Percy:** _i mean maybe if you think its worth it… I'm pretty sure I'm alone up here, weird glowy creature noises aside. and thats if this alarm even works_

**2:05 AM, Jason:** _I don’t know. I think it might be a good idea._

**2:06 AM, Percy:** _really? i cant help feeling like this is a waste of time. you’re sure?_

**2:06 AM, Jason:** _I don’t think it can hurt. And if it doesn’t work, you can always just… not and go to sleep instead._

**2:07 AM, Percy:** _yeah fine alarm whatever_

**2:07 AM:** _another glowrod cracked, only 8 left_

**2:08 AM:** _luckily (?) most of the wiring is exposed so it shouldn't be that hard to hook it up to the generator_

_-_

**2:24 AM, Percy:** _In what Im calling nothing short of a miracle I've gotten the alarm hooked up and the monitor powered._

**2:25 AM:** _alrighty then_

**2:25 AM:** _guess no ones gonna steal my rat pellets while i catch some zs_

**2:26 AM, Jason:** _Hey, I want to try something before you sleep, if that’s okay with you._

**2:26 AM, Percy:** _Yeah sure, go ahead_

Jason slid Percy’s contact name to the side and braced himself before pressing _‘call’._ Maybe it really would be that easy.

He realized that he might over stress their connection—he wasn’t sure how tenuous it was, even. There didn’t seem to be much delay between messages, but that really didn’t speak for how easy the connection would be to break.

The phone rang for a while, until suddenly it didn’t. There were a few seconds of silence before a horrendous amount of static erupted from the speakers.

_Nope,_ Jason thought, _not that easy._

**2:27 AM, Jason:** _Did you hear anything… horrifying, maybe?_

**2:27 AM, Percy:** _yeah my comm just fucking shrieked_

**2:28 AM:** _not gonna question it. g’night._

**2:29 AM, Jason:** _Night, Percy. Tell me if anything goes wrong._

_-_

**3:14 AM, Percy:** _noises again_

**3:15 AM, Jason:** _The same ones as before?_

**3:15 AM, Percy:** _Yeah and i just saw it too_

**3:15 AM:** _same little bioluminescent… things_

**3:16 AM:** _Ive gotta be imagining it right?_

**3:16 AM:** _Im the only thing on this godforsaken rock right?_

**3:17 AM, Jason:** _You need to go find out what it is._

**3:17 AM, Percy:** _Come on man_

**3:17 AM:** _im going I'm going_

**3:18 AM:** _only 7 glow rods left hope this is worth it_

_-_

**3:29 AM, Percy:** _Yeah there is jack shit on this ship_

**3:30 AM:** _i dreamt the entire thing and that was all for nothing_

**3:31 AM:** _going back to sleep now._

**3:31 AM, Jason:** _Night. Sorry._

_-_

**4:48 AM, Percy:** _shit_

**4:48 AM:** _alarms going off_

**4:48 AM:** _thought it was a space demon here to steal my soul_

**4:49 AM, Jason:** _What’s on the monitor screen?_

**4:50 AM, Percy:** _nothing. Theres nothing on the screen._

**4:50 AM:** _of course theres nothing on the screen_

**4:51 AM:** _knew this thing was shoddy at best_

**4:52 AM:** _im unplugging and going to fucking SLEEP_

**4:53 AM, Jason:** _Shouldn’t the sun(/star) be rising soon there?_

**4:53 AM, Percy:** _fuck._

**4:53 AM:** _yeah. It should. Fuck._

**4:54 AM:** _Whatever. I'm packing up._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, yeah, percy would've died if he'd brought the generator up there anyway of a seizure, which is kind of horrible and a waste of time so i cut that choice out just because i didn't wanna bother writing it. but luckily he didn't die anyway (yay!)


	8. gailur

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I'm gonna write a choice chapter tomorrow," they said, and failed. (sorry.)
> 
> we have to choose our highschool classes this month and im torn between my two favorite fields as to what i want to do when i grow up: world religion/greco-roman classics, and marine biology. any of you oldies (as in, year nine and up) have any advice?? im stressed out of my mind

**5:30 AM, Percy:** _gmorning_

Jason, who had just woken up from his (seemingly) millionth power-nap, didn’t remember the last time he’d actually slept like a normal human. But, what was normal-human sleep when you were trying to help someone survive on an alien moon?

**5:31 AM, Jason:** _Rise and shine._

**5:31 AM, Percy:** _Im rising_

**5:32 AM:** _and I'm definitely shining_

**5:32 AM, Jason:** _Really? Way to be optimistic, Percy, good on you._

**5:33 AM, Percy:** _by that i mean I'm feeling like Jack Nicholson at the end of the shining_

**5:34 AM:** _intensely cold and more than a little crazy_

**5:34 AM, Jason:** _Ah, right, right._

**5:35 AM, Percy:** _and i wasn’t even asleep for that long but I've got the worst taste in my mouth again. and the green spit._

Jason remembered the connected he had made between the bioluminescent aliens and the saliva, got angry at himself for remembering, and shoved the remembrance away.

**5:36 AM, Jason:** _I thought we agreed it was atmospheric trace elements, right?_

**5:36 AM, Percy:** _Yeah_

**5:37 AM:** _guess i should hook the alarm back up and figure out what went on with the proximity sensors huh_

**5:38 AM:** _my best guess is that wind got up a dust storm small enough to pass as a living thing_

**5:39 AM:** _but ill still check_

Jason didn’t particularly _care_ if Percy was only not-talking to him for a matter of minutes. He was going to go back to sleep.

**5:48 AM, Percy:** _so this is incredibly weird_

The text woke Jason up.

**5:49 AM, Percy:** _I've watched it a few times now and if you look really carefully at quad 2 theres something that almost looks like a person_

**5:50 AM, Jason:** _That’s not possible._

**5:51 AM, Percy:** _I know its not possible jason. i know. human minds have a tendency to spot face shaped things. learned the name for that its called pareidolia_

**5:51 AM:** _not to mention I'm probably super prone to it being the only person out here_

**5:51 AM:** _THE ONLY PERSON_

**5:52 AM, Jason:** _Yep._

**5:52 AM, Percy:** _so even though it looks like a person i know its not_

**5:52 AM:** _totally not freaking out_

**5:53 AM, Jason:** _Keep studying the footage._

**5:53 AM, Percy:** _it doesnt matter i see it every single time_

**5:54 AM:** _im gonna go eat. because thats what normal people do in the morning. eat breakfast._

**5:54 AM:** _yaaaaay rat pellets and stale water_

Jason had fully intended to go to sleep again, but Percy kept messaging him. 

**5:54 AM, Percy:** _so today’s a door bashing day right_

**5:55 AM:** _guess i should try and get into the galley_

**5:55 AM, Jason:** _Sure, give it a shot._

Jason actually got around five minutes in that time. 

**6:03 AM, Percy:** _i already know i cant go through, i have made myself one of those claw-trigger stick things, yknow like old people have?_

**6:03 AM:** _I call mine the Reachin Stick. capitalized cause this is a million dollar idea_

_-_

**6:08 AM, Percy:** _I've dropped a lot of shit. but Ive also gotten some chicken pesto so its a win for me._

**6:08 AM:** _though i dont think all this Reachin is good for my shoulder_

**6:09 AM, Jason:** _Starvation is worse than no arm. Keep going._

**6:09 AM, Percy:** _ok 1 im gonna keep my arm theres no need to assume its getting amputated and 2 youre right with a Reachin Stick this nice it would be a shame not to use it_

**6:13 AM:** _just got some ratatouille._

**6:13 AM:** _is this freeze dried cgi rat? my god_

**6:14 AM, Jason:** _It’s stewed vegetables, Perce._

_-_

**6:22 AM, Percy:** _ok I've got a sizable stash of MREs. and the way i see it, today is all about reaching that peak, so I'm taking some food with me. i hope yesterday’s inability to get there was just illusions and exhaustion. I'm liking my odds a lot better. What do you think?_

**6:22 AM, Jason:** _Go for it._

Jason figured that with the short gaps between messages, it just wasn’t worth it to try and sleep again, and he might as well start his life.

**6:25 AM, Percy:** _packed up and outside nightmare ship. and i still see that weird green glow around the peak from yesterday. and my compass is still fucked up. i could take the time to make one but i guess i dont really need one to get to the peak. i mean i can see it._

**6:26 AM, Jason:** _Make one. Definitely make one._

**6:26 AM, Percy:** _ok but that'll take like ten minutes get back to you_

Never mind. Jason would sleep for ten minutes, and _then_ start his life.

**6:35 AM, Percy:** _got me a compass._

**6:35 AM:** _and it actually works so, point Percy_

Of course, just after Jason had worked up his resolve to get up after than ten minutes, Percy didn’t talk to him for a couple hours. It gave Jason some time to do morning stuff that had typically been pushed back or abandoned in favor of being Percy Jackson’s Moon Council. He was eating breakfast at a table in Cup when Percy finally sent something to him again.

**8:41 AM, Percy:** _ok. on the other side of the small crater. once again, i feel like I'm not any closer._

**8:41 AM, Jason:** _You've got to keep going._

Jason couldn’t help thinking, while drinking his coffee that was not made by him, that that was an incredibly easy thing for _him_ to say.

Percy took it in stride.

**8:42 AM, Percy:** _right. plenty of daylight ahead of me (and thats without the weird time stop thing from yesterday) and finite amounts of moon._

**8:42 AM:** _if i keep walking I'm bound to get somewhere_

**8:43 AM:** _or die trying_

Jason was heading to his eleven AM class when he got another text. 

**10:52 AM, Percy:** _good news: I didn't die trying, bad news: i dont feel any closer_

**10:52 AM:** _one moment ill feel like I'm almost there and then i look up and I'm ages away_

**10:53 AM, Jason:** _How much light do you think is left?_

**10:53 AM, Percy:** _oh yeah speaking of which the sun (star) froze again. its been noon for almost 3 hours_

Jason had been trying to work that out. It couldn’t be an illusion, because the warmth stayed. It could’ve been that whatever orbits kept the days and nights in that place were messed up. It could’ve been that there was something keeping the light—a reflection of some kind? Some kind of thing that required extensive map and a knowledge of lightyears to figure out? 

Jason had neither of those. He was just confused.

It could’ve been the same force that was messing with the distance of the peak.

Jason had suspicions of this force, but he didn’t tell Percy. _Obviously_ he didn’t tell Percy—Percy was paranoid enough already. It just didn’t make sense that at seemingly random intervals, this peak would move around and time would stop. It didn’t make _any sense_. Jason wasn’t exactly fond of things that didn’t make any sense.

Not to mention the omnipresent color green on that moon. Why was everything green? What did being green mean, or was there any significance at all? Was Jason unknowingly dooming Percy by not telling him any of that?

**10:54 AM, Percy:** _Im thinking of stopping for food. Wise decision?_

Jason didn’t really look at what Percy had asked as he typed back. 

**10:54 AM, Jason:** _Yeah, sure, go ahead._

He had gotten to the building in which his class was held, but he didn’t intend on going to the classroom. He went down into the basement, found an abandoned (but, besides the lack of electric lighting, still in very good condition), pulled out one of his notebooks, and began mapping everything out. He needed a record.

_Moving green peak — > green aliens —> green saliva. _Or, maybe, _Moving green peak — > (1) green aliens; Moving green peak —> (2) green saliva. Moving green peak = Time changes (???) _Or, perhaps, _Time changes = Moving green peak (???)_

Okay, scratch the record. Before Jason got the record together, he needed more information.

He spent the rest of the time before Percy messaged him again doing extensive research via Safari on his phone. He really wasn’t getting anything besides a few tinfoil-hat blogs yelling about ships being pulled onto moons so their dead inhabitants could host aliens, but Jason decided that that was all just _too weird_ to look into.

Googling his problem, given the specifics, wasn’t really helping him too much. Jason guessed he could’ve foreseen that.

**11:20 AM, Percy:** _the magic peak has finally worked in my favor_

**11:20 AM:** _I look down one moment, look up the next, and I’m one crater away from the thing_

**11:21 AM:** _and its not even that big. should take me… half an hour? i dunno_

**11:22 AM, Jason:** _Percy, I don’t know if this is a good idea._

**11:22 AM, Percy:** _What are you talking about?_

**11:23 AM, Jason:** _I’ve been doing some research, and it just doesn’t add up._

**11:23 AM:** _The peak, the scuttly-things, the time warps, it can’t all be illusion or coincidence, can it? It just can’t._

**11:24 AM, Percy:** _Honestly J at this point I dont even care. Youre seriously suggesting I turn back now? This is everything all of this has been leading up to_

Jason was about to type back _yes, yes I do think that, it’s not safe, go back,_ but then he realized that it didn’t even matter. Percy wouldn’t take him seriously—Jason was a law student who had never been outside the continent, much less the planet. He didn’t know anything about that kind of stuff. And Percy was determined. He was going to go through with that plan whether it killed him or not, at that point.

**11:25 AM, Jason:** _No, I’m not suggesting anything like that. Go ahead. Good luck._

Jason packed up his things—research was getting him nowhere—and headed up, extremely late, to class.

-

**11:32 AM, Percy:** _ok so i have some news_

**11:33 AM:** _I think it isnt an illusion honestly_

Jason resisted the urge to type back, _What did I freaking say, Percy?_ and instead opted for sending, _What made you think that?_

**11:33 AM, Percy:** _I've noticed that it wavers every time it gets suddenly closer or farther away_

**11:34 AM:** _like, existentially. it just. disappears._

**11:34 AM:** _and before you say anything i know its impossible_

**11:35 AM, Jason:** _You’ve seemed to be doing quite a lot of impossible things, Percy._

_-_

**11:50 AM, Percy:** _more! Weird! Shit!_

**11:51 AM, Jason:** _Let’s hear it._

**11:51 AM, Percy:** _I was just walking along as you do_

**11:52 AM:** _and i came across some human footprints_

**11:52 AM:** _MY footprints_

**11:52 AM:** _same size, tread pattern, everything_

**11:53 AM:** _in a place I've never been before_

**11:54 AM, Jason:** _Maybe you’ve walked in a circle? I mean, the peak is, like, disappearing and stuff. So, you could’ve just reversed._

**11:55 AM, Percy:** _yknowhat i dont wanna think about it_

**11:56 AM:** _holy fuck. i looked up and I'm here._

**11:57 AM:** _its a lot bigger than i thought it would be. theres a recessed area a little way aways but I'm gonna scout around first._

Jason was aware that he had arrived half an hour late to class and was now sitting in the back of the room on his phone, but he decided not to think about how much of an asshole he most definitely looked like.

**12:02 PM, Percy:** _theres writing. Chinese again i think._

Jason didn’t have time to type anything before Percy said something else.

**12:02 PM, Percy:** _my compass started going back and forth and the whole peak went green and disappeared for a second._

**12:03 PM:** _I didn't blink, I didn't look away. I reached my hand into the space where it used to be and there was nothing_

**12:04 PM:** _and then it reappeared and my compass is working fine_

**12:04 PM, Jason:** _That’s—I don’t want to say it’s impossible, but…_

**12:04 PM, Percy:** _I know. But i saw it Jason. I saw it._

**12:05 PM:** _i know youre not gonna believe me so… back to walking i guess_

_-_

**12:20 PM, Percy:** _im back at the recessed area. I’m going to try not to be unsettled by this, but I have to tell you it's gonna be an uphill battle_

**12:21 PM, Jason:** _What’s going on now? I swear, Percy, don’t give me another heart attack…_

**12:21 PM, Percy:** _its a doorway._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it has come to my attention that the way i write is very... british. im welsh and im trying to sound american but im sorry if the crumpets and unnecessary ethnicism of my country just... leak out of my prose/dialogue... if i say something offensively un-american just shoot me a comment
> 
> ya'll this story is almost over... i'm sad because i like this style of writing (maybe i'll do another text-based story or more reader participation idk) but excited because??? i can work on etincelles??? and this thing will be a Complete Thing that i made and it will be nice. i have so many extensive jason/percy aus that i want to write... so many it scares me. i just hope i'll get to them all before i die. hopefully you all don't get tired of reading my writing about the same two dorks in different worlds again and again
> 
> sorry for the excessive notes if you havent noticed i like words a lot


	9. daleky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *to the tune of the spongebob theme tune* who hasn't updated in two thousand years? mor-tal-or-acle!
> 
> aaaaanyway.
> 
> ALSO ANOTHER HECKING NON QUESTION ONE  
> there might not be another question chapter at all  
> idk if i can put one in  
> the ending is Close guys. its Close.

**12:22 PM, Percy:** _I don't mean it's a cave entrance that naturally formed in the rock or that sort of thing. it's a DOORWAY. right angles and everything. human scale, for someone my size._

**12:22 PM:** _What do I even do with this information?_

**12:23 PM, Jason:** _Take a minute to process it._

Honestly, Jason had no idea how someone was supposed to ‘process’ that situation. But it felt like what he was supposed to say.

**12:27 PM, Percy:** _I think I'm good. I mean Im as good as i'll get. what do you think?_

**12:27 PM, Jason:** _Only if you’re sure._

**12:28 PM, Percy:** _course Im not sure. theres no way i could be sure about this. but I'm going._

**12:29 PM:** _doorway opens into a nondescript rock hallway. Nondescript other than that its also at human scale which does actually seem like something worth mentioning._

**12:30 PM:** _Once the light from outdoors shuts off it's dark as fuck in here, which is not helping me but theres distant light ahead_

**12:30 PM:** _are you fucking kidding me?_

**12:30 PM, Jason:** _What? What just happened?_

**12:31 PM, Percy:** _I know its happened to me before out but never this close._

**12:33 PM:** _heard the echo before I even heard the source. i was looking around trying to figure out where that scuttling sound was coming from and I saw that green glow near the floor. and it was a bunch of little pairs of eyes_

**12:33 PM, Jason:** _Did you get any other clues as to what they look like?_

**12:34 PM, Percy:** _no too dark. one of them ran against my leg. Didnt hurt me. just ran by._

**12:35 PM, Jason:** _Did they even notice you?_

**12:35 PM, Percy:** _Yeah i think. They were all kinda staring at me and then they ran._

**12:36 PM, Jason:** _Like they were scared?_

**12:36 PM, Percy:** _not really. its almost like they want me to follow them._

Jason needed somewhere to pace. Had he been in his dorm, he would’ve been able to walk around in seemingly endless circles, or jam his shoulder into the wall, or push nervous crescents from what little nail he had into the back of his neck.

But instead, he was trapped in a chair in the back of a fluorescent-lit classroom feeling like he was under inspection, listening some to drone about client interaction. _Okay._

**12:26 PM, Jason:** _Okay. Follow those… things._

**12:27 PM, Percy:** _they went running to the light ahead of me. I guess thats where Im going too_

**12:27 PM:** _Why would it get BRIGHTER the deeper inside a mountain you go? Theres no way that makes sense_

As Percy ventured deeper into the peak, Jason attempted (he tried, he really, really did), to listen—or even care about—the class going on around him. He felt like he was in a bubble. He could see and hear everything going on around him, but he couldn’t really take part in it. He was there, but he wasn’t interacting with anything. Instead, all he could think about was Percy, and that peak, and that moon, and the distance between all of that and where he sat just then.

His phone buzzed again.

**12:40 PM, Percy:** _Unless there were, I don't know ELECTRIC LIGHTS in the mountain_

**12:40 PM:** _What the fuck._

**12:41 PM:** _Im not sure I can even describe this to you Jason_

**12:41 PM:** _I dont know what I was expecting to find when I got here but I promise it wasn't this_

**12:41 PM, Jason:** _What did you find?_

**12:42 PM, Percy:** _Im in a room. I guess its a control room._

**12:42 PM:** _I don't know what its controlling_

**12:43 PM:** _The room itself is pretty small big enough to stand up in and move around a little_

**12:43 PM:** _But in banks on the walls there are computer systems._

**12:44 PM:** _Functioning computer systems._

**12:44 PM:** _There are brand names I recognize_

**12:44 PM:** _There are even a couple of chairs in front of them_

**12:45 PM:** _taken from some old starship flight deck and repurposed here i guess_

**12:45 PM:** _to build a freaking workstation_

**12:45 PM:** _On the moon._

**12:46 PM:** _This all must be parts from ships. The computers, chained generators, wiring_

**12:46 PM:** _the wiring is the other thing_

**12:47 PM:** _There’s TONS of it. Bunched and bundled. it all leads out of the computer banks and up into a hole in the rooms ceiling._

**12:47 PM:** _And from there who knows where?_

Jason had just sat, watching all the texts roll in a mixture of disbelief and ominous confusion. Everything just kept making less and less sense, and it wasn’t supposed to. The more you explore, the more you’re supposed to understand. Wasn’t that how it worked?

He had no idea what to say. Had he been Percy, he would have no idea what to do at all. He probably would’ve sat down and rocked back and forth in a corner. He probably wouldn’t have made it out of the _Varia._

But the actual Percy was waiting on him. So he had to say something.

**12:48 PM, Jason:** _The computers sound important. I’d look into it if I were you._

( _No, I wouldn’t,_ Jason thought. _I’d cry._ )

**12:52 PM, Percy:** _this is wild_

**12:52 PM:** _This screen is showing a topographical map of the moon. some pixels, but thats definitely what it is_

**12:53 PM:** _Its centered on this peak_

**12:53 PM:** _I can toggle out and scroll. found the wreck of nightmare ship_

**12:54 PM:** _if I keep panning to the south there's the Varia. Two bright pieces._

**12:55 PM:** _This is surreal. Where are these images even coming from? Is there some sort of satellite up there? multiple?_

**12:56 PM:** _how much of the moon does this system cover?_

**12:56 PM:** _Oh my fuck_

**12:57 PM, Jason:** _What is it? You have a habit of making exclamations about things like I can see them with you._

**12:58 PM, Percy:** _i zoomed out on the monitor to as much as i can see and there’s dozens of shipwrecks, Jason._

**12:58 PM, Jason:** _How many total?_

**12:58 PM, Percy:** _i cant see the full surface_

**12:59 PM:** _but i counted thirty-one_

**12:59 PM, Jason:** _How have I (/we) never heard about this in the news? You didn’t know about it, right? How does no one know about the damn Space Bermuda Triangle?_

**1:00 PM, Percy:** _no i didn't know I've never heard about it until now. but theres other monitors. maybe i could check the whole moon with all of them_

**1:00 PM, Jason:** _Yeah, wake up the other computers._

**1:02 PM, Percy:** _so there was a language menu, i went with english, and then the screen said_

**1:02 PM:** _[ALL SYSTEMS OPERATIONAL]_

**1:02 PM:** _[BROADCASTING]_

**1:03 PM:** _[TIME TO PULSE: ]_

**1:03 PM:** _after time to pulse theres a wicked fast timer down to fractions of milliseconds counting down. to the Pulse, i guess?_

Jason, although he didn’t know why, started to get a rather sick feeling in his stomach.

**1:04 PM, Percy:** _I woke up the monitor next to this one_

**1:05 PM:** _Its like the proximity alarm I set up back at nightmare ship, but its looking out a little ways from the peak_

**1:06 PM:** _Slightly different model but at least I know exactly what I'm looking at here_

**1:06 PM:** _Its functioning well too_

**1:08 PM:** _Holy shit. Holy shit._

**1:09 PM, Jason:** _What, Percy? I AM NOT THERE WITH YOU._

**1:10 PM, Percy:** _theres something moving on the screen_

**1:10 PM:** _Something outside the peak. Moving toward the peak. moving toward ME_

**1:11 PM:** _Something human shaped_

Jason’s sick feeling got worse. It was then that he realized that he had been sitting in the back of the class ten minutes after everyone had been dismissed—the lights were off, the door was closed, and the professor, even, was gone. Jason grabbed his bag and started walking down the hall, so fast it could’ve almost been considered a run. He was glad that there was no one else around, because he probably would’ve looked completely crazy to anyone looking.

**1:14 PM, Jason:** _Are you absolutely sure?_

**1:14 PM, Percy:** _completely. That is a person. And that person is coming HERE._

**1:15 PM, Jason:** _Stay where you are. Just whatever you do, stay safe._

Jason climbed the old stairs of the building where his class had been held—a big, stone-and-steel monstrosity—faster than he ever had before, or than he would’ve ever thought possible. He expected the feeling in the pit of his guts to go away when he went through the front doors but it _didn’t_. Everything around his was completely fine but he still felt like the world was ending.

**1:16 PM, Percy:** _that’s the best plan i think. Give myself a little while to prepare for this._

**11:16 PM:** _(how the fuck do i mentally prepare for this)_

**11:17 PM:** _Because there's no doubt, they're heading right for where I am._

**11:18 PM:** _And then what?_

**11:18 PM:** _Am I rescued?_

**11:18 PM:** _I got some time. i’ll see what else I can do with these computers_

There was a kiosk a little ways away from the old brick building where Jason took most of his classes. Jason, as someone who had a strange aversion to savory condiments, bought the plainest thing he could find, found the back of a wall to lean against, and did the first of the only two things he thought would even come close to calming down his brain (How was he supposed to stay calm?): Research, and stalking (Was it stalking? It was all public information.) Percy.

He found an extensive forum that took him a while to read through, but one of the comments on a significantly old post struck him with its specificity to the situation: 

_A symptom of mild radiation sickness is, I think, inflamed lungs. The chemicals that come from your white blood cells that cause inflammation get into your saliva or phlegm, they can turn yellow or green. I don’t know if you’ve ever had bronchitis, but the tinted fluids are a big indicator of that. So, I guess, you could get green spit from radiation sickness, although it’s a stretch. I assume it would be rather yellow-ish like you described. You never said why you were asking, anyway, so why’s that? I could probably help more if I had more information…_

The forum on which he found the comment slightly reminded him of a sleeker Reddit, in layout and use. He wanted to click the commenter’s username, to try and find out if they had ever updated on the topic, but they were a guest user and there were no further posts in the forum. Everything had either been abandoned or deleted.

_Or,_ said a little voice in Jason’s head, _they died._

Then the voice in Jason’s head said, _they didn’t die, and no one else is going to die. Shut up._

How was he supposed to bring any of that up to Percy? Was he supposed to be like, _So, how green is your spit? ’Cause, like, if it’s yellow-green, you have a cold, but if it’s green-green you’re probably gonna die._

He also really didn’t want to google _green phlegm_ for a reference photo since, A, he didn’t think it would help much anyway, and, B, it wasn’t a thing he suspected most people wanted to see.

Seeing as research had just proven to make him even more anxious, Jason turned back to his not-stalking of Percy, as he so often seemed to. 

He had only ever been far enough to get to two pages of the Google results that showed up when he searched _Perseus Jackson,_ or other similar titles, but that day he stooped low enough as to venture onto page three.

He immediately felt justified for doing so, as the first thing he found was a video blog.

It looked to be mostly recordings of live broadcasts, nothing very visually interesting (besides Percy himself)—just him at a desk, talking, occasionally peering closer to a phone screen and (probably) responding to whatever he’d read.

The last update was from almost thirteen months before, and every single video looked very low-budget.

Frequently, blonde not-girlfriend appeared in videos, mostly next to Percy or peering over his shoulder from behind. The videos were spaced apart by masses of text, and as Jason scrolled it became clear that this was probably the first, less popular, officially-abandoned version of the blog that Jason had previously found—the one about The Unknown.

It was strange to see Percy in moving form, acting like a person. It was strange to hear that he had a voice, sounding like a person.

All of it was strange, that he was so very real.

Despite his combination of feeling both wondered and panicked, Jason picked up on Percy’s voice—it was nice, easy, and Jason could easily picture it delivering all the things that Percy had typed to him.

He felt like he had unevened the playing field slightly more than it had been already. He had already known what Percy looked like, and had access to all the information one could find if they were just willing to scour. Percy, on the other hand, only knew what Jason had chosen to tell him, and—although not because Jason was untrusting—Jason was quite clannish about all of that.

Now, Jason knew even more—Percy’s voice, how he talked, his filler words (Jason had already picked up on _“y’know”,_ but through the videos he discovered that Percy was more of a _like_ than an _um_ person), that he tended to run off and not finish sentences, coming back to them one, five, or ten minutes later, or that he switched topics like he’d never be able to speak again.

And it wasn’t just the way he spoke, it was the way he existed: gestures, facial expressions, tics (Percy had a habit of breaking eye contact to look up to a corner whenever he thought about something that puzzled him, and another habit of bringing his hand up to the back of his neck).

Jason didn’t _try_ to realize all of that. He just _did._ He knew all of this, and Percy still knew next to nothing. If Percy ever wanted to know anything, Jason resolved, he would tell with no resistance. If Percy ever got off that moon, Jason resolved, he would make sure Percy spoke to him at least once.

**1:29 PM, Percy:** _Theres a sector wide scanner. Its the one that most of the wires are coming from_

**1:29 PM, Jason:** _Check out the screen to which it’s attached._

Jason felt like perhaps he was doing a disservice with that last message. If he wanted Percy to know him like he felt he somewhat-knew Percy, he was going to have to type what he thought. Jason did not think, _to which it’s attached._ He, instead, thought, _what it’s hooked up to._ It was not very civic to fix his prepositions when that wasn’t what he was like.

He was definitely thinking too much into everything.

**1:33 PM, Percy:** _I think those wires comprise a broadcasting antenna, now that Im looking at it_

**1:33 PM:** _And that means this peak has got to be some sort of broadcasting tower_

**1:34 PM:** _or if its not it can at least work as one_

Jason hoped that meant what he thought it meant. (He was almost unsure of what he thought it meant, however, as he wasn’t tuned in as to how most outerspace broadcasting worked.)

**1:35 PM, Percy:** _If this place is broadcasting (which it is) and I have access to the broadcasting center (which I do) then every second Im not sending out an SOS is a second Im wasting_

**1:35 PM:** _Give me a sec to see if I can get into the feed_

**1:38 PM:** _I interrupted the feed, type SOS_

**1:38 PM:** _…get mad at myself for not knowing SOS in multiple languages, decide SOS was probably pretty universal_

**1:39 PM:** _then get the feed broadcasting again._

**1:39 PM, Jason:** _That means…?_

**1:40 PM, Percy:** _If anyone stumbles through this sector or maybe just brushes against it (I dont know how powerful the signal is) theyll know Im here_

**1:40 PM:** _Even if Im not totally sure where here is_

**Connection interrupted**

**Time stamp invalid**

**Retry?**

Jason clicked ‘ **yes** ’. 

**Reacquiring signal…**

**Establishing connection…**

**Receiving message…**

**1:41 PM, Percy:**

**1:41 PM:** _Jason?_

**1:41 PM:** _Hey jason are you getting these?_

**1:41 PM:** _is anything weird happening on your end?_

**1:41 PM:** _Jason._

**1:41 PM:** _Jason are you controlling what’s going on?_

**1:41 PM:** _What the fuck? What the fuck._

**1:42 PM, Jason:** _Hey. Whoa. It’s okay._

He was tempted to add ‘I’m here’, but then it occurred to him that he _wasn’t_ there, and that it probably would’ve just made everything worse.

**1:43 PM:** _I dont know what that looked like from your end but from where im standing_

**1:44 PM:** _(lets be honest, from where Ive crumpled on one of the chairs)_

**1:45 PM:** _there was this humming noise and my vision started to go a little fucked_

**1:45 PM:** _I looked at the monitors and the TIME TO PULSE was 0_

**1:45 PM:** _and then it was like the whole world just fell apart_

**1:46 PM:** _Like everything moved away from me and I moved away from it_

Jason read what Percy had sent. Then he read it again. This was not something he could Google—this was not green saliva. He had no idea what to think, much less what to say.

**1:47 PM, Jason:** _I think what just happened was what you described with the peak shining and disappearing. Except, this time, you were inside the peak, so you went with it. We disconnected on my end._

**1:48 PM, Percy:** _not surprised we were disconnected. I think I was... what?_

**1:48 PM, Jason:** _Out of phase with reality?_

**1:49 PM, Percy:** _the transmitter gave an invalid date/time message. what the fuck date and time was it reading?_

Jason quickly wondered if the peak ceased to exist when it disappeared. Even quicker, he wondered if Percy had ceased to exist when it had disappeared. Even quicker, if possible, he shoved both thoughts far, far away.

**1:51 PM, Percy:** _Hey I have some news to report. Not sure where it lands on the whole good news/bad news spectrum_

**1:51 PM, Jason:** _Lay it on me._

**1:52 PM, Percy:** _not exactly sure what to make of this_

**1:52 PM:** _Best case scenario Im about to get really REALLY rescued_

**1:52 PM:** _Because where there used to be 1 human shaped human approaching me_

**1:52 PM:** _now there are 4_

**1:52 PM, Jason:** _Stay there._

Jason kept wanting to add _‘stay safe’_ to the end of every message he sent, but he thought that that would be redundant. _Obviously_ Percy would try and stay safe. But Jason felt the need to take responsibility of saying that anyway.

**1:53 PM, Percy:** _absolutely I'm gonna stay here_

**1:53 PM:** _If this is a rescue team then I can wait an extra few minutes to get rescued_

**1:53 PM:** _I made it this long already_

**1:54 PM:** _If its survivors from another crash they might be crazed from wandering through the desert for however long_

**1:55 PM:** _(I mean ive only been wandering for a few moon days and I think I might be crazy)_

**1:55 PM:** _I figure id rather wait and make sure they know Im a stranger here too_

**1:55 PM:** _if theyre not rescuers or survivors (if they're something worse)_

**1:56 PM:** _then I sure as hell don't want to give myself right to them_

**1:56 PM, Jason:** _Good logic all around._

**1:57 PM, Percy:** _Thanks jason. I have no schema for this sort of situation (as most people dont)_

**1:57 PM:** _reassuring to hear someone else tell me that what Im saying isnt complete shit_

**1:58 PM:** _thing is I cant shake the thought that these humans could be NOT HUMAN_

**1:59 PM:** _Some sort of native creature that sees me as a threat (or food yknow thats plausible)_

**1:59 PM:** _I know it sounds stupid. This place hasn't given me a lot of reason to believe it can support large lifeforms_

**1:59 PM:** _I haven't seen water or vegetation_

**2:00 PM, Jason:** _There’s breathable air, though. If you’ve been there so long, there has to be some water in it, right?_

**2:01 PM, Percy:** _Right. its mostly n2 but enough oxygen that my lungs are happy and like no co2_

**2:01 PM:** _also I know I didnt hallucinate whatever those things were that ran by me in the corridor earlier_

**2:02 PM:** _they were small. inches and ounces. Insects maybe?_

**2:02 PM:** _But whatevers coming here now is as big as I am_

**2:02 PM:** _Maybe that just means theyre humans_

**2:03 PM:** _I’m just gonna settle in and get comfortable (Im as unsettled and uncomfortable as I have ever been in my life)_

**2:03 PM:** _Theres that scuttling sound again_

**2:04 PM, Jason:** _This is the first time you’ve heard it when there've been lights on. You might actually be able to see it._

**2:05 PM, Percy:** _Do I even WANT to see it?_

**2:06 PM:** _The sound's coming from behind the monitor bank in the wiring_

**2:07 PM, Jason:** _Go look for it._

**2:07 PM, Percy:** _Really?_

**2:07 PM:** _This is fucking stupid_

**2:08 PM:** _I mentioned before Ive seen an awful lot of scifi horror movies_

**2:08 PM:** _Over the last couple days its become pretty evident that I've seen TOO MANY_

**2:10 PM:** _Ok. Its louder behind the pulse count computer_

**2:12 PM:** _JESUS FUCKING CHRIST._

**2:13 PM, Jason:** _Percy._

**2:13 PM, Percy:** _i know I've gotta tell you stuff cause youre not here_

**2:14 PM:** _but this one freaked me the fuck out_

**2:14 PM, Jason:** _What’s so special about it? Did you find the scuttling things?_

**2:15 PM, Percy:** _Yeah. Theyre my lab rats._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i mean im gonna try to include some question-choice-things in the epilogue chapters buuuuuut for now theres a ton of exposition i need to get out of the way


	10. istina

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, just to let you know, this chapter has some animal gore as well as death in it. There will be a warning in bolded and italicized text, so look out for that if you need it. (personally, i don't think most of it's that graphic but we all have different tolerance levels for that kinda stuff)

**2:15 PM, Jason:** _I thought they had died in the crash… How is that possible?_

**2:16 PM, Percy:** _How should I know? I survived the crash so its totally reasonable that they did too_

**2:16 PM:** _Their cage was wrecked but I never found any evidence of their bodies_

**2:17 PM:** _But these are definitely MY rats. first one who stuck his head out was Teach_

**2:17 PM:** _I called him that because he was all white, except this one spot of brown over his right eye._

**2:17 PM:** _Looks kind of a pirate eye patch. very distinctive_

**2:18 PM:** _Except that patch used to be over a pink eye_

**2:18 PM:** _And now that eye is bright green_

Jason felt his stomach flip, and he wasn’t even _there_.

**2:18 PM, Jason:** _Trace elements. We’re sticking with trace elements._

**2:19 PM, Percy:** _mmhm_

**2:20 PM, Jason:** _Are all of your rats there?_

**2:20 PM, Percy:** _think so. Teach and Oed stuck their heads out first and I pretty much fell over_

**2:21 PM:** _then Harpe got between them_

**2:21 PM:** _I can still hear more from behind the monitor_

**2:21 PM:** _I guess thats Arthur and everyones here_

**2:22 PM, Jason:** _Alright then. Say hi to them for me, please. Is there anything weird going on?_

**2:22 PM, Percy:** _Theyre just… acting like rats_

**2:23 PM:** _I mean apart from the eyes. theyll turn and stare at me, and they seem so weird._

**2:24 PM:** _This on top of everything else. computers in the mountain. visitors. time/space fuckery._

**2:24 PM:** _Give me a sec_

As the sec began, Jason took the time to look up and realize that he had almost walked the entirety of the way back to his dormitory building. He dropped his bag just inside the closed door of his room and went to sit on his bed, where he stared at the ceiling and waited for Percy to send him an update. He tried to feel _anticipation_ instead of _anxiety_ , but, like always, it didn’t quite work. So he went to go sit on the kitchenette table.

**2:25 PM, Percy:** _Theres a ship in this sector!_

**2:25 PM, Jason:** _That is an incredible coincidence but I am very excited nonetheless!_

**2:25 PM, Percy:** _!!!_

**2:26 PM:** _it’s too early to know if theyre on an arc here or if they got my SOS_

**2:26 PM:** _But they entered the sector map and the monitor lit up like Christmas. I imagine my eyes did too._

**2:26 PM, Jason:** _I think I’d pay to see that._

**2:26 PM:** _That’s huge._

**2:32 PM, Percy:** _Huh. THAT doesn't seem good._

**2:32 PM, Jason:** _What?_

**2:33 PM, Percy:** _You remember the one with the TIME TO PULSE countdown? That just lit up_

**2:33 PM:** _Theres new text on the screen:_

**2:33 PM:** _[SECTOR BREACHED]_

**2:34 PM:** _[TARGET ACQUIRED]_

**2:34 PM:** _[TRACKING…]_

**2:35 PM, Jason:** _Oh. Well, shit._

It was A, the first thing he thought, and B, the thing he thought that Percy would most want to hear. (Well, the only thing he’d want to hear that wasn’t a complete lie.)

**2:35 PM, Percy:** _I assume that its in reference to the ship that might be coming to rescue me_

**2:36 PM:** _The one that Id really like to not be a target_

Jason did not want to reveal the fact that he’d always been suspicious of ‘coincidences’, especially this one, nor that he felt like he was on the worst kind of carnival ride when he was actually just sitting on his kitchenette table. That just didn’t seem fair.

**2:36 PM, Jason:** _Can you override it?_

**2:36 PM, Percy:** _probably not_

**2:37 PM:** _still gonna try_

**2:37 PM, Jason:** _Good luck._

**2:38 PM, Percy:** _I dont even really know what Im overriding really_

**2:38 PM, Jason:** _I was under the impression that it was the Pulse._

**2:38 PM, Percy:** _shit youre right_

**2:39 PM:** _electromagnetic pulse probably. Some kinda directed energy weapon like a particle beam?_

**2:39 PM, Jason:** _Could that even do any damage? Like, significantly?_

**2:40 PM, Percy:** _A strong enough energy beam, set loose in the vacuum of space, you could tear a spaceship like the Varia right in half. Fuck. That mustve been what happened_

**2:41 PM:** _The Varia and who knows how many more. a ton of bright green bricks glowing on the map screen_

**2:41 PM, Jason:** _What reason could there be for blasting ships out of the sky and then just leaving them?_

**2:42 PM, Percy:** _hard to say._

**2:43 PM:** _shit if i get home alive Im gonna have the same PTSD the kids from Charlie and the chocolate factory had_

**2:43 PM:** _Probably fewer cavities though. guess thats a plus_

_-_

**2:46 PM, Percy:** _The 4 human shaped shapes are maybe half an hour out from here_

**2:46 PM, Jason:** _Just stay where you are._

**2:47 PM, Percy:** _Yep. no need to go out and meet them theyre headed straight to me_

**2:48 PM:** _Besides between keeping an eye on my rats and trying to keep my rescuers from being shot out of the sky Ive got enough to worry about_

_-_

**2:53 PM, Percy:** _nope cant override it_

**2:54 PM:** _cant even get a clear read on the TIME TO PULSE the numbers are moving so fast_

**2:55 PM:** _part of me wonders what would happen if I just started unplugging things_

**2:55 PM:** _Or if I just started kicking things._

**2:56 PM:** _Probably a bad idea. Id screw up the broadcasts i WANT to be making without solving anything_

**2:57 PM:** _But confidentially? Sometimes even the nerdiest of people really wants to fuckin kick everything_

**2:58 PM:** _visitors are almost here_

**2:58 PM:** _Im am sweating a lot and theres a lump in my throat that has nothing to do with radiation_

**2:58 PM:** _just in case you wanted to know jason_

**2:58 PM, Jason:** _I really don’t mind._

**2:59 PM, Percy:** _I dont think Ive ever been this anxious in my whole life_

**2:59 PM:** _…ok well at least i have a distraction now_

**3:00 PM, Jason:** _What’s going on now?_

**3:00 PM, Percy:** _I heard squealing from the corner where the rats are eating._

**3:01 PM:** _They must be hungry. They got through everything I had on offer_

**3:01 PM:** _Arthur and Oed are fighting over the last of it. But its escalating fast_

**3:02 PM:** _It went from normal rat squeaks to SHRIEKING. Its actually painful_

**3:03 PM:** _The other two have started doing it too. Theyre just circling like a boxing match_

**3:04 PM, Jason:** _You’ve got to get closer._

**3:05 PM, Percy:** _Youre insane if you think Im sticking my hand in there to try and separate them or anything_

**3:05 PM:** _I should be adding all of this to my notes. this is definitely atypical for these little guys…_

**3:05 PM:** _OH MY GOD_

**3:06 PM:** _WHAT THE FUCK AM I EVEN LOOKING AT_

**_[gore warning]_**

Jason didn’t have time to respond before another notification rolled in.

**3:06 PM, Percy:** _theyre literally killing each other_

**3:07 PM:** _they’re just ripping each other up_

**3:07 PM:** _Teach and Harpe dont seem to care_

**3:07 PM:** _Huh_

**3:07 PM:** _There should be so much blood. But there isn't._

**3:08 PM:** _There isn't any blood at all actually_

**3:08 PM:** _What the hell is going on? Why doesnt anything make sense on this fucking moon?_

**3:09 PM, Jason:** _If something weird is going on, you have to keep watching, Percy. You can’t miss anything._

**3:10 PM, Percy:** _I know its just_

**3:10 PM:** _this isnt a fight_

**3:10 PM:** _this is a vivisection_

Jason actually had to look up the word ‘ _vivisection_ ’, since he didn’t think Percy was in a particularly good place to define it for him at that moment.

_viv·i·sec·tion_

_ˌvivəˈsekSH(ə)n/_

_noun_

_The practice of performing operations on live animals for the purpose of experimentation or scientific research (used only by people who are opposed to such work)._

Well.

**3:12 PM, Jason:** _Calm down. Just breathe._

**3:12 PM, Percy:** _too scared to breathe_

**3:12 PM:** _I wake up every day with green spit, like the rats eyes. dont think I hadn't noticed that_

Well, shit.

**3:12 PM, Percy:** _best I can figure is that its from the atmosphere_

**3:13 PM:** _Whatever I'm BREATHING_

**3:13 PM:** _does that mean I'M going to turn out that way if I keep breathing this air?_

**3:13 PM:** _I don't think I can keep breathing_

Jason once again got the strangest feeling that he felt like he’d like to be there. He didn’t know what he’d say or do. He just knew he wanted to _be_ there. To be a recognizable human for Percy on that space rock.

He didn’t even know.

**3:14 PM, Jason:** _Percy, you will literally die if you do not breathe._

Jason couldn’t stop thinking of Percy’s conversational habit of putting his hand on the back of his neck and breaking eye contact. Someone who did _that_ shouldn’t have to do _this_ — _no one_ should have to do this, but especially not someone like _that_.

Who was someone like that? What made Percy any different?

**3:15 PM, Percy:** _I know._

**3:15 PM, Jason:** _And you’re a lot bigger than the rats. Maybe you have to take in a lot more air before you start experiencing the side effects._

**3:15 PM, Percy:** _Not knowing is whats killing me at the moment_

**3:15 PM:** _hang on hang on hang on_

_-_

**3:16 PM, Percy:** _Oed just tore into Arthur’s guts and I turned around and threw up which I think is fair_

**3:16 PM:** _My puke was kind of green too. So Im freakin out over that_

**3:16 PM:** _Why won't they stop SCREAMING?_

**3:17 PM, Jason:** _The people will be there soon, right?_

**3:17 PM, Percy:** _any minute now._

**3:17 PM:** _they've stopped screaming_

**3:17 PM:** _oh fuck._

**3:18 PM:** _i think I'm gonna puke again_

**3:18 PM, Jason:** _Why? Are you okay?_

**3:18 PM, Percy:** _cause theres something crawling (is it crawling? its not scuttling) …OUT of Arthur’s body_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes all of the rat names are various kind of Percy-themed references i spent too much time picking names


	11. tahae

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a poem by mortaloracle:
> 
> jason is anxious,  
> he has ocd.   
> i am jason,  
> jason is me.

**3:19 PM, Jason:** _“Out of its body”? What does that even mean? What’s going on?_

**3:19 PM, Percy:** _its nothing thats on Earth. Its that luminescent green_

**3:20 PM:** _it’s reeling sinews and veins back into its body mass like fucking fishline from his limbs_

**3:20 PM, Jason:** _That thing was working your rat like a puppet from the inside._

**3:20 PM, Percy:** _theyve gone quiet. what the fuck_

**3:20 PM:** _what the fuck?_

What was Jason supposed to type back? He couldn’t say ‘ _it’s okay_ ’, because it _wasn’t_ and it _probably wouldn’t be_ and that would sound _entitled as hell,_ and he couldn’t ask any questions because that would just force Percy to think about it and what was the point, anyway? There wasn’t anything he could do—he didn’t know shit about any of it. He had no idea what was happening at all.

Jason did what he always did, if he was able, in times of both mental and physical peril. He got up to pace.

He kept his phone pressed against his hip, still clutched in his hand, mindful of any sort of indication that Percy had sent something else to him. He ran his thumb over the volume buttons in some form of a reliable loop. The rest of his fingers drummed over the still-bright screen.

Jason heard a noise. 

He remembered both that his phone was on silent and that there had been no previous noise before than indicating anyone else in the dorm—music playing or anything of the sort—up until that moment.

Jason stopped walking. He continued to hear the noise. He could identify what it was, then: unsteady, heavy, static-y _breathing_. Surely more jagged than Jason’s was, surely less clear.

Jason didn’t trust what he heard. He held his breath. The breathing persisted.

The breathing was coming from his hand.

Jason looked down toward his hand and found that he was on a call screen, one that he must have accidentally hit.

Jason, while afraid, was not stupid, and raised the phone to his ear.

“Percy?”

He kept his voice low while speaking into the phone, just in case there was a reason to.

Percy did not answer. Jason decided that he didn’t have the time to find himself insane today and that Percy must just not have heard him. He spoke louder.

“ _Percy._ ”

That time a voice Jason recognized gasped back through the speaker, so close and loud that Jason flinched.

“The _fuck_ —”

“—Percy. It’s Jason.” 

There was a momentary silence. Then, “Jason?”

It was weird to have Percy call him Jason with volume. With his voice. “Yep. Sorry.”

“I—what? Okay. _Okay_.” Percy’s laugh was diluted by the air he breathed out with it.

Jason gathered his head. Another bit of adrenaline fell through the bottom of his stomach. He had to get everything together. “Tell me what’s happening, please.”

“…Same old, I guess. Y’know, possession via glowing green—ah— _thing._ Arthur has not gotten up. I mean, Arthur’s guts are spread pretty thin so it’s safe to say he probably never will. And the other rats are just… staring at him.”

“Right. … _Right_.” Jason attempted to say what he was trying to say, but he wasn’t quite sure what that was—he couldn’t quite get all of his thoughts together in one place, in a way that he could analyze. Maybe he—maybe he could just…

“Is it dangerous?”

“Is it _dangerous_?” Percy’s voice was even lower than Jason’s as he hissed into what Jason assumed was the comm. system embedded in his suit’s collar. “ _Is it dangerous_ —what kinda question is _that_ , Jason? It just took over my rat and now my rat is dead. Death is—death is dangerous.”

Jason wasn’t expecting such a caustic rebuke, but he really couldn’t blame Percy, he guessed. 

“Right.” He couldn’t stop saying that, because it wasn’t right, but he said it was perhaps it would feel that way. “Right. What color are the rats’ eyes? Still green?”

Percy’s _mm-hm_ back was a little strangled, quieter in such a way that made Jason think that it wasn’t conscious. He felt himself biting his lip harder than he should have, but he couldn’t make himself stop until his flinch triggered his automatic response to let go when he broke into his skin.

He wanted to ask what was happening, but for some reason, he didn’t find it wise to speak.

“ _They just all looked at me_ ,” was the only thing Percy whispered after a few seconds. “What the _fuck_.”

“Even… even the dead one?”

“Obviously not him, Jason. But—” For a second, Percy stopped breathing, “—the green thing’s coming towards me. Jason—”

“—Yeah, you’ve gotta get rid of it.”

“ _How,_ Jason?” 

Jason could practically hear Percy’s gritted teeth. Jason shrugged, only aware afterwards that Percy couldn’t see it. “Kill it? I don’t know.”

“I’m _not_ killing it—” there were some muffled curses and a few metallic, skittering sounds that suggested that Percy had probably just climbed on top of a chair “—and I don’t exactly have a newspaper lying around to swat at it.”

“Okay, then—”

Percy had not been finished talking, evidently, as he just interrupted Jason to continue, “—Besides, this is an unknown species. It would suck if ‘kill it’ is how I dealt with first contact. And what if I kill one and the others, like, attacks me or something, y’know?”

The last part made it different, Jason guessed. It wasn’t like he really wanted Percy to kill the Thing, either, but he had little pity for something that possessed dead animals and made them fight like illegal dogs.

“Yeah, you’re right, I think.”

“Huh?”

“I said you’re right. Don’t kill it. Just stay away.”

“…Got it— _oh—!. …_ Shit.”

Jason prompted Percy to elaborate inside his head. Luckily, Percy did.

“Okay, so, one, the Thing has stopped, and, two, the computer’s flashing at me.” 

There was a creak as (Jason guessed) Percy leaned some direction on the chair-slash-table he was sitting on. Percy’s busy murmuring leaked through the phone, along with the clicking of a keyboard—not the sleek kind of Jason’s laptop, either. The ones made of cubes of plastic that hook up to monitors bigger than a domesticated cat.

Jason almost screamed—Jason _did_ scream, but stopped halfway—when Percy’s whoop leapt through the receiver. He dropped his phone onto his lap.

“Jason?” (Percy had, apparently, heard the garbled sounds of Jason screaming and dropping his cellphone.)

Jason was quick to get it back and pretend like nothing had happened. “Yeah.”

“You remember the ship in this sector?” Percy’s voice was mostly a high-pitched, excited exhale by the end of his sentence, understandable and contagious, which just served to make Jason feel as excited about it as Percy was.

Jason didn’t even know what Percy was about to say; he knew it wasn’t negative. He grinned as he spoke. “One hundred percent so.”

“It’s altered its path! And it’s decelerating!”

“Is it—?”  
“—It’s headed _here._ ”

“Are you sure?”

Percy sighed. More keyboard clicking. Jason hated to be a buzzkill.

“I mean…” Percy started, sounding only mildly dampened, “there’s not much I can tell from these shit monitors but I’m absolutely, completely, totally sure that _that_ ship is headed to _this_ moon.” Percy’s voice began to rise again, more and more air every word. “Even if they didn’t get my signal, I can flag them—fuck, if they’re too far away I will flare them and I will fucking _run—_ and they’ll get me the fuck off of this rock!”

Jason had to laugh—maybe it was the elated tone combined with the sheer amount of times that the word _fuck_ was used. Maybe it was relief. Maybe it was eagerness. But he was laughing.

“I assume this means they got the pulse off of them,” Percy said. “Which is great, because now I don’t have to deal with it.”

Jason’s heart stopped. “Or they don’t know.”

Percy made a sound that was akin to a very sarcastic _pfft._ “They _have_ to know. It’s huge!”

Jason didn’t find much comfort in that, but he figured if Percy was alright with it he really had no choice.

“ _God_ ,” Percy said, “I can’t believe I’ll finally—”

His voice cut off. For a second, maybe two, Jason heard nothing but garbled static. Then his phone clipped to black.

A second later, it was back on, with the call screen gone but nothing else out of place. Jason sent a text that just said, _Percy?_ and waited for a response before texting again.

**3:32 PM, Percy:** _I dont know how to work the comm you have to call me_

**3:32 PM, Jason:** _What happened? Was it the pulse again?_

**3:32 PM, Percy:** _Yeah_

**3:32 PM:** _Fuck_

**3:33 PM:** _I dont wanna type please call me jason_

Jason was tempted to make a joke, but he doubted it would go over well. He didn’t even know what was wrong, so he didn’t want to joke about it.

The static crackled for a few seconds, then resolved into breathing. Percy didn’t say anything, so Jason gave a tentative, “…Hey.”

Percy coughed. His voice sounded significantly less enthused. “Hey.”

“What’s—what’s going on? What was up with the pulse? Is…” Jason’s heart sunk. He hadn’t yet thought of what he was about to say. “…Is the ship still… still on course?”

Percy clicked and typed around for a bit. “Yeah. Everything’s good for now.”

“So what’s the issue? Are those other people getting too close?”

In truth, Jason had almost completely forgotten about the group of four people headed towards Percy’s peak. It would be just like Fate to have them be the reason everything went south.

“No. I was just worried, what if the pulse happens while the ship is here, and then they decide that I’m not there—‘cause I’m, y’know, in whatever anti-plane this thing enters while it’s in phase-out mode—and leave? Because I don’t know what I—”

“They’re not going to leave after just a few seconds, Percy.”

“What?”

“They’re not going to leave after a few seconds.”

“A few _seconds_? Jason, that was almost an hour.”

Jason did not know how to respond to that. He didn’t think that either one of them was incorrect—there was no way anyone could mistake a few seconds for an hour, or vice-versa.

Percy muttered, “More space-time fuckery. And the people aren’t here yet, fuck logic.”

Percy took a breath like he was about to say something when a horrible sound erupted from the receiver. Jason held his phone away from his ear, startled but careful enough not to drop it that time.

He heard Percy’s now-faint shout of “Fuck off!” barely over the noise, and he figured that he either need to continue to put up with the horrifying shrieking noise and scream himself, or just make Percy text him instead.

**2:37 PM, Jason:** _Is that the rats?_

**2:37 PM, Percy:** _Yeah_

**2:37 PM, Jason:** _Christ._

**2:38 PM, Percy:** _Wish I was religious. if you are pray for me_

**2:39 PM, Jason:** _Because of the rat screaming?_

**2:40 PM, Percy:** _No. Because the proximity alarm says the people are inside this mountain._


	12. край

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soz i haven't updated in nine actual years but it's here now love you bye

**2:40 PM, Jason:** _Right. Okay._

**2:41 PM, Percy:** _Jason this is clearly not okay_

**2:41 PM, Jason:** _Not to sound insensitive, but it’s not like it’s going to get any better. Sit tight. Any other pressing matters?_

**2:42 PM, Percy:** _the fact my DPC camera isnt working is costing us history_

**2:43 PM:** _the Thing is still coming towards me_

**2:43 PM:** _rats are still screaming_

**2:43 PM:** _spacetime is still fucked up_

**2:44 PM:** _im still freaking the fuck out_

**2:44 PM:** _so nothin new_

Jason tried to imagine that situation. He then decided that it was just _too weird_ and he neither could nor should try to visualize it. He should just keep talking. Or. Typing.

**2:45 PM, Jason:** _Besides glowing green, what’s the Thing like?_

Jason really didn’t need to know. He had asked mostly to keep Percy’s mind on one task, and to distract him from the quickly approaching, possibly morally-grey people.

**2:45 PM, Percy:** _sleek and featureless_

**2:45 PM:** _and it actually looks BIGGER than the rat was_

**2:46 PM:** _theres no way it all coulda fit inside his skin. isnt physically possible._

**2:47 PM, Jason:** _I mean… I guess it has to be an illusion, right?_

**2:50 PM:** _Percy?_

**2:52 PM:** _Percy._

**2:53 PM:** _Percy Jackson?_

**2:53 PM, Percy:** _Call me. Now_

**2:53 PM:** _keep quiet_

Jason did as he was told without question, because he didn’t know what the hell was going on, fingers shaking as he pressed the _‘call’_ icon. The static buzzed for a few familiar seconds, giving way to Percy’s panicked breathing. There was no screaming, of rats or otherwise.

“…Perce…?” The last syllable got lost somewhere between _anxiety_ and _volume._ It was never found.

“Yeah. …Thanks. Fuck. _Fuck_. They’re _here_.” There was something off about his voice.

“Are they good? Are you safe?”

“I… don’t know. They’re just—I’m crying, and I don’t even know why. I’m not sure what’s going on.”

Jason tried his best to keep his voice close to level. “Just… tell me what you see.”

He heard Percy breathe in, and then out. In, and then out. In, and then out. “Okay.”

Jason waited. 

Percy continued, “Their suits have American flags on the left shoulder, just like mine. All wearing helmets—the ones with the gold UV visors. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

“No. Don’t explain it. Just—just keep talking.”

Percy let out a noise halfway a sigh and a contemptuous whimper. “They’re just _so fucking familiar._ And—they’re not really moving but I—I’m shit at this—I’m trying to read the names… oh. Oh.”

“What?”

“Oh. Fuck.”

“ _Percy_!”

“Sorry. _Sorry_. They’re—these guys are my crewmates.”

The words, “But that’s not possible,” were out of Jason’s mouth before he could stop them. 

“I know. I fucking _know_ , Jason—I saw these people, _definitely_ dead, mostly fused to-fucking-gether, all the way back at the _Varia_. I _know_ it’s not possible.”

Jason was about to say something when Percy started talking again, but not to him. His voice sounded like it was directed away from the comm. system, maybe looking up.

“Come on, don’t do— _shit_. What did I just say, Colby? What did I _just say_?”

“Percy. Who are you talking to?”

“One of my—she took of her helmet, Jason. I thought maybe it wasn’t _her,_ that maybe some other survivor’s had taken suits from the _Varia_ , but… it’s her.”

Jason didn’t want to ask _Are you sure?_ but he didn’t know what else to say, so he just stayed silent.

Percy continued. “It’s really _all_ of them. Helmets off. Just staring at me. And they—they look exactly the same, except for the eyes. They look alive.”

“Percy, those Things are not your friends.”

“But they _look_ just like them. And the eyes are wrong, I know... but the longer I look at them, the more normal they look.”

“Percy…”

“And there are these little marks around their mouths. Scabs from... they look like... claw marks, kinda.”

Jason didn’t know if Percy realized—although he assumed that Percy had, not being a complete idiot and all—that the scabs were probably related to something trying to get in their mouths, which was evidently the Thing, which lead to them being the way that they were. But he wasn’t about to bring that up.

“Percy, check the Pulse timer.”

There was silence for a few seconds, like Percy couldn’t really hear him. Jason repeated himself. Percy said, “It… it stopped.”

“At zero?”

“No. It’s frozen at one more minute.” 

Jason barely had time to process that information before Percy said, “…Jay, they’re looking at me again. It makes _sense._ Why does it all look normal? It’s like, I know it’s not the way it’s supposed to be, but it doesn’t look wrong like I used to think it did, and I—”

“—Stop looking at their eyes, Percy.”

“You’re not really hearing me—”

“— _Stop it_.”

“You don’t _get_ it, Jason. This is the first time since I got here that I’ve felt _calm_. _This makes sense._ This was supposed to happen, I think.”

“Screw calm. _Get out_.”

Jason had not woken up that morning prepared to deal with parasitic alien mind-manipulation. But now that he had to, he had better think of something to get Percy to leave that godforsaken peak, and fast.

“I have to be here. I get it now. This’s why we crashed. Why I’m the only one that survived. Why I walked all the way out here—”

“—Perseus Jackson—”

“—I have to let the other one in. Those scratches—it gets in through the mouth.”

“ _Perseus Jackson—_ ”

“—I just have to relax.”

_“Percy fucking Jackson!”_

Percy’s voice snapped back into it’s usual tone and timbre. “Christ, Jason, what do you want?”

“You are about to let an alien creature _kill you_ and _possess your_ fucking _body_ and you _seem_ to be in fucking _support_ of it.”

“Whoa, language.”

“ _Percy._ ”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about— _Jesus fucking Christ_!”

Before Jason realized that Percy might be in mortal peril, he mocked _Whoa, language,_ under his breath. He then said, “What’s happening?” into the receiver.

“That Thing tried to get into my mouth.”

“No _shit_. You were letting it. You have to get out.”

“Yeah. Yeah—I can probably duck around the edge if I just—” Percy’s voice was cut off by a dull thump, a groan, and some static. Percy’s voice came back a second later. “Ducking has 

proven ineffective.”

“Are you okay? Any Plan B?”

“I’m mostly okay…? I got hit on my shoulder—the hurt one. It’s like they _knew_. And no. No Plan B. Just more tries.”

More scuffling, thuds, groaning, static. Rise and repeat. Until all that Jason heard was the creaking of some chairs and Percy’s heavy breathing. 

“I can’t—they just—they just hit me when—when I try to go past—and then they—they just stop moving…”

Jason felt like such an asshole. “If there’s no other way, you’ve gotta keep trying.”

“Jason, I can barely breathe.”

“Did you—?”

“—Got hit in the chest, back into the wall. They’re, like, supernaturally strong. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“You have to—”

“—Keep trying, yeah, I know. Since you’re the only one who knows I’m about to die, organize a nice funeral, okay?” Percy paused a moment to (dry, Jason suspected)heave. Then Percy said, “It’s casual attire.”

“You’re _not_ going to die.”

“Imagine how that’ll look on the records? ‘Died of fighting self to the point of exhaustion, eventually taken over by green space parasite’.”

“ _You are not going to die._ Go on. Try again.”

“If I fight, I’ll die. I’ll get hit and pass out, or something. I don’t have anything to fight back with.” 

“Find something.”

“There’s _nothing_.”

“Have you looked at the computers? Is there anything you could do—anything at all—with those?”

“Jason, there can’t be—shit. Oh, shit.”

“What? Is everything okay?”  
“I don’t like this. And _nothing_ is okay, Jason. But—but, yeah. This could work.”

“Percy, what are you thinking? What’s going on?”

Percy didn’t answer. Jason just heard Percy’s labored breathing and some rapid keyboard clicks.

“I mean,” Percy said after a while, still making furious typing sounds, “the Pulse timer is frozen—I guess that’s what happens when the sun stops? The time jumps around. Maybe it’s a glitch. Who knows. _But_. I figure if the Pulse targets ships that are flying overhead, there must be somewhere where you can enter in coordinates. So, if I can find that place, I can put in the coordinates of _this peak_ , and—well. Y’know—”

“—You cannot blow up that mountain, Percy.”

“Why? It’s the best bet I’ve got.”

Jason was horrified that Percy was even _considering_ it. “Because _you’re inside of it._ ”

“There’s nothing else to do! It’s better to go down with the undead alien fucks than to be killed by them.”

Jason said, “ _Percy_ ,” because he really had nothing else to say.

More clicking. Percy said back, “ _Jason_.” It was almost mocking, but a little too fragile. More quiet typing.

“Look,” Percy said, after a few empty minutes in which something had happened in Jason’s stomach that he neither understood nor enjoyed, “since it’s pretty obvious that in the next few minutes, I’m going to die—ah, shit.” Percy sucked in a hiss of choked breath. “Yep. I’m gonna die. _Okay_. Okay. I’m going to die.” He sighed. “I think you should know—”

Another Pulse destroyed the connection.

The next four seconds were the longest of Jason’s entire life.

He called again.

“I’ve gotten it set up and given myself five minutes on the timer. Five minutes to do what, I don’t know. All I’ve done so far is hide from the Thing on this chair and cry. Which I could do for a while.”

Jason first thought that that was all good news, but then he realized what it meant: in five minutes, the Pulse would strike the mountain. In five minutes, the connection would be lost to static, and when Jason called back, there would be no answer. In five minutes, Percy would be dead.

His voice shook. “Everything’s good?”

“Ha, _no_. They’re—they’re not making any noise, but the crew—are they still the crew?—is just. They’re all just looking at me. And coming towards me. And— _shit_!”

Jason heard the following sounds: a muffled but very, very close scream, a slam, and a crunch that sent a heaving feeling through Jason’s gut. Another scream.

Jason didn’t say anything. He _couldn’t_. There was the sound of fruitless, gasping breathing on the other end. Jason knew that feeling—no matter how much air you took in, you still felt like you couldn’t breathe enough.

Finally, he managed it. “Percy?”

Percy’s voice was quiet, with the quality of someone trying to steal from the lair of a sleeping dragon. “If I back away from the computer, I think they’ll shut down the triangulation.

But if I stay here, I’m afraid they’ll rip me apart, or shove the Thing down my throat.”

“So don’t move.”

“ _Jason_ …”

“Guard you throat—I don’t _know_ , Percy. It’s not as if I’m any more of an expert than you.”

“I don’t know, either. I just thought you’d be… panicking less, y’know?”

“Yeah, no.”

Percy’s voice came back. “I just need to stay alive and protect the computer for…” he trailed off. “…Four minutes and twenty seconds.”

“Are they… are they doing anything?”

Jason heard the rustle of Percy shaking his head. “Nah. But I’m doing my best not to move, either.”

Silence.

“Hey,” Jason said, “what were you going to tell—”

A siren, loud as Hell and sharp as a scalpel cut through the receiver.

Percy screamed, “Jesus- _fuck!_ ” which Jason could honestly agree with.

“What the hell is that?”

“Siren.”

“Good siren or bad siren?”

“My old friends don’t seem to like it, so I—gonna check the monitor—”

Percy shouted something both painfully loud and glorious. Jason held his phone away from him. His battery was on thirteen percent, and he hadn’t noticed. He rushed to plug it in.

He asked, “What?” loud enough that the pone didn’t even need to be up to his face. “What does it mean?”

“The ship—it’s landing! There’s four minutes left—I— _the ship_!”

Percy seemed to think that four minutes was a lot of time. Enough time for the rescue people to get inside of the peak, enough time for them to find him, enough time for them to get out and take off. Enough time for them to not all explode.

Maybe it was enough time.

“Percy, have you tried killing them? Any kind of offense?”

“I… no. I don’t think I could.”

“You have to try. Use you chair, or your compass, I don’t know.”

Percy shut off the comm. Jason cussed.

He knew _why,_ of course, but he was still royally fucked up over it. He didn’t think Percy understood just how much it killed him to not know what was going on, or if Percy was okay.

It killed him a lot. A fucking lot.

**3:16 PM, Percy:** _out_

Jason felt his entire body light up.

**3:16 PM, Percy:** _running_

**3:16 PM:** _h_

**2:16 PM:** _hurts_

**3:16 PM:** _call_

A thousand watts of electricity must’ve been in Jason’s veins. No, a million. He pressed call, stared at the four (five?) words before him, and let out the feeling he didn’t quite understand in the best way he could fathom: he screamed into his arm. He wanted to cry, and he probably would, if he didn’t have the best self-control of anyone he knew. He waited. He would have to wait until he knew everything was okay. He had no idea when that would happen.

Jason called. Fizzly static, garbled and harsh at first, resolved into a steady backdrop a few seconds later. Percy’s breathing was more distorted than normal, by both processing and natural standards.

“You’re out? Safe?”

Percy made a noise that sounded like he was trying to speak—somewhere between a breath and a gasp—but cut himself off with a sound that was loud, shameless, borderline-animalistic, that unmistakably meant that Percy was in pain.

“If—if you _c_ -call this _ssss_ safe.”

He sounded drunk. The kind of drunk that’s uncomfortable to look at.

“Christ, Percy. What’s wrong?”

“Talk late— _later_. Jus _ss_ stay? St-stay.”

“Do you want me to talk? Or just wait?”

Percy didn’t answer.

The connection slowly got more and more cloudy. The static got so loud it was painful, until it finally cut off. Jason hoped that meant Percy got into the ship, and not that he had exploded.

Shit. What if he had exploded? Jason didn’t think it had quite been five minutes. He was pretty sure there’d been more than two left. It was slightly irrational to think that those last two had just disappeared, but he couldn’t help it.

He tried to call again: white-hot static, and nothing more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> he may or may not be dead but this isn't the last chapter so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> hang in there next update in the next couple days
> 
> SPOILER  
> SPOILER EW  
> (he aint dead)  
> SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER


	13. نوم

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what do u do when u need to write real cheesy stuff? u listen to novels (the one with dodie obvs) and stay up until three to lose all of ur inhibitions  
> highly recommend listening to it although it's a lil too intense  
> (disclaimer: no it is not where i got the stay line)

Jason woke up next to one Piper McLean. She was sitting next to him on his bed, although he was more crumpled sit-laying rather than sitting, muttering as she covered bubbly handwriting in a notebook she had on her lap. Jason didn’t know if she had come over in her pajamas or changed in his room, because she was wearing a Hello Kitty tank top and frayed leggings. She didn’t seem particularly concerned that Jason had fallen asleep at three-thirty.

Honestly, Jason was a little concerned as to why she was in his room at three-thirty.

Was it three-thirty?

Jason rolled over, groaning as he did—he’d fallen asleep in a terrible position—to check the time on his phone. Nine forty-six PM. Not three-thirty.

Suddenly he remembered.

He had tried to call Percy a few more times, each ending in fruitless static, until he’d decided he’d just wait for Percy to text him. If he could. And, even if he _could_ , if he ever _would_.

Jason decided not to think about that possibility.

And then, both because he had not slept in an astounding amount of time and because he was probably a heartless bastard, Jason fell asleep.

“McLean.”

Piper took a few seconds to look at him. “Grace.”

“Why’re you in my room?”

Piper cocked her head. “You invited me over here to help me with calc a couple days ago. Do you want me to leave? You looked like you were kind of in the middle of something.”

“No, I…” Jason was grateful for the distraction. “Yeah. Sounds good. Let’s get started.”

-

Jason did not receive anything from Percy for the rest of the night, and throughout the next morning, either. At six-twenty AM he got a message from his writing partner in one of his classes, but it was just a query that hadn’t sent correctly and had been pushed through later.

He thought he might go completely insane. There was only so many times that refreshing a message window gave you comfort.

He knew that A, he was being completely petty, and B, it completely wasn’t the reason Percy wasn’t talking to him, but he felt _ignored._ He wanted to know what was going on—where Percy was, if he was okay, how he felt. Jason felt like he needed to be in the loop. He had gotten used to being the link.

-

It had been five days, and Jason had heard absolutely nothing. There was nothing new on NASA’s website, or on Percy’s school. No social media had been updated. The news didn’t seem to have a clue. And, of course, Jason’s phone still had yet to herald him of any sort of interstellar communication.

-

**4:14 PM, unknown sender:** _hey is this the right number_

**4:15 PM:** _I thought i remembered it_

**Trace messenger’s number and location?**

**> yes< no**

**Warning: Messengers under the following providers will be notified that you tried to search them. Proceed?**

**> yes< no**

**Tracing…**

**Gathering information…**

**Number: (###)614-2203 Location: [Error]**

**Retry tracing messenger’s location?**

**> yes< no**

**Tracing…**

**Location: [Error]**

Jason couldn’t let himself get his hopes up, because maybe ‘error’ meant something different after the most recent software update than before it, but he also couldn’t get the smile off his face.

**4:17 AM, Jason:** _If you’re looking for Jason, then yeah, it’s the right number._

For a few minutes, there was no response.

**4:21 AM, (###)614-2203:** _thank fuck_

Jason had imagined a response other than ‘thank fuck’ to being able to talk to Percy for the first time again in eight days (thirteen hours and six minutes, he had been counting), but looking back, he couldn’t remember exactly what it was. Maybe he hadn’t really imagined it, since he didn’t expect it to happen, since he suspected that Percy was dead?

Maybe.

**4:22 AM, Jason:** _Thank fuck indeed._

**4:23 AM:** _Where are you? You’re okay?_

**4:24 AM, Percy:** _yknow id really prefer if you called me because my chest is kinda strapped down and sitting up sucks_

**4:24 AM, Jason:** _Or you’re a suspense-loving shit._

**4:24 AM, Percy:** _Ha._

Jason left the library, making his way to the stone storage awning behind it to avoid the rain. It was almost pitch-black underneath.

Maybe a week of silence was a semi-reasonable scapegoat, but Jason felt nervous, and then angry at himself for being nervous, and then—

—Fuck it, he was just going to call.

There were a few dialtones, and then clearness. No static, no breathing, no sound at all.

_Are you gonna talk? I’m kind of waiting on you to speak, because you know what’s going on here and, frankly, I’m—_

_—_ “Sick audio quality, yeah?”

Jason nearly tripped. “Yeah.”

Silence.

“ _Yeah_.”

He heard Percy laugh, and it was good, very good, but strange, because it was the first time he’d actually heard that in real time. And in such good quality. (Percy wasn’t exaggerating—Jason could buy speakers that good if he murdered a few uncles and took their wills. Not that he was going to do that.)

Speaking of the quality, everything went fuzzy for a moment, and Percy said, “Shit. More maintenance—but we should be fine.”

_Maintenance_.

“Percy,” Jason began, but he could already feel an expression creeping up onto his features, “where in the world are you?”

“Nowhere. Thanks for the opening.”

Jason wanted to sound annoyed but he couldn’t. “ _Perce._ ”

“Yeah, yeah… I’m on the…” Jason heard the distorted sound of Percy leaning over something and leaning back again. “I don’t know how the _fuck_ to pronounce that. I would say six-neck? But I know that’s not right. Whatever. Means flash in Russian, they said.”

“The ship from the moon?”

“The one and only.”

“Jesus, Percy, I—” Jason stopped. He didn’t know what he “—”. He opened his mouth, and then closed it again. He shrugged, more for himself than anyone.

Percy’s voice became softer, although it hadn’t been very loud before. “And, yeah, I’m okay. Besides some minor inconveniences.”

Jason tried to ignore the overkill sensations in his chest by prompting, “Such as…”

“Sprained shoulder, which we knew, two fractured ribs from when I got thrown into a fucking wall, and… and, y’know, my left leg is broken. So that’s nice.”

“How in hell did you break your leg?” Quieter: “You didn’t tell me about that.”

“I was kinda in the middle of something. So…” Percy trailed off for a moment, and then sighed. Jason really wasn’t sure why. “You know how the— _my_ —crew seemed to hit right where I was hurt? Like they knew, or something?”

“Yeah.”

“When Dan”—Jason guessed that was another crew member—“hit me the first time, he chipped a couple of my ribs, apparently, but he also hurt my ankle.”

“Following.”

“Then, when I…” another decrescendo, another sigh. This time a slight uncomfortable swallow. Then continuation, “…When I tried to, y’know, kill them, he took my compass from my and tried to stab me in the face.”

“You—”

“—Avoided that, yeah. But I fell backward, and then Colby just comes up and fucking snaps my leg. I don’t know how she did it. But apparently if I’d left it there it would’ve been a pretty clean break. But we also know that if I just left it there I wouldn’t currently be on this ship. _So_ I made the stupid-smart decision of running on it for a few hundred yards to the _six-neck_.”

Suddenly most of the audio made sense.

Jason said again, “Jesus, Percy.”

“Then I got on the loading dock—y’know, those ramp things you see in _Star Wars_ —and just passed out. I guess from pain? Stress? I don’t know. When I woke up, a very nice woman I could not understand at all gave me a cup of Gatorade and some Tylenol and tore bits of rock and bone from my leg.”

“ _Nice_.” The way Jason said ‘ _nice_ ’ made it very clear that he did _not_ think that it was in any way nice.

“I know. After that I got moved from the hospital-room-leg-torture area to _here_ , which is a crew cabin I’m currently sharing with Mia…” Percy stopped. “Smur-nih-cough. Smyrnikov. She gave me her bed, but she still finds it easier to sleep.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Leg hurts like hell, but—”

“—Percy.”

“Oh. Yeah. I’m alright, I think. We… we should be getting to wherever the Russian spacecrafts land soon. I hope the whole ocean thing is true. I wanna try that.”

“ ‘Soon’? I thought it was four months.”

“ _About that_. I’m gonna do my best to explain it, because this is what I’ve rationalized and gotten from the crew members here who don’t really know what’s happening and I can’t really understand. When the peak exploded, we were just out of the atmosphere, which means we were affected by _your_ end of the Pulse, but the space around us wasn’t. So we’re currently traveling in some time-fuckery pocket where one second of travel is like fifteen minutes. Roughly. I think. So… what would be four months is now, like… God, I don’t want to do the math right now. But it’s shorter.”

“Sounds convenient.”

“Now that I think about it.”

“You deserve it.”

“Let’s go with that.”

Jason contemplated whether it was weird or not to tell Percy that he had missed him. He wondered if it was even true—maybe he’d just been worried.

“There hasn’t been anything about you on the news.”

Jason heard what he assumed was Percy’s bed creak as Percy shifted. Reflexively, “Yeah. NASA’s a bunch of secretive fucks.” 

Jason decided that he had, indeed, missed him.

“I’d be surprised if my mom knew.”

“Do you want me to tell her?”

“I think this’s being recorded by the Russian government—by extension the people I’m supposed to work with—so no.”

Jason couldn’t detect the nuances in Percy’s voice that might’ve meant that he actually _did_ want Jason to tell Percy’s mother, but he couldn’t ask, so he just stayed silent.

“I think that might be the real reason Mia lent me her phone.”

Jason looked around the edge of the school for a bit, then up at the dark grey, angry sky, then back down. “I’m gonna head back to my room. I’ll call you there, okay?”

“By all means.”

-

Jason decided that if Percy couldn’t see him then it really didn’t matter that he was post-shower and post-giving-a-shit, sat on his bed in his underwear with his comforter draped over his shoulders like he could govern a small elven kingdom.

He didn’t have any more classes to attend, and although he had enough homework to last him well into the night, he just… really didn’t want to fucking do it.

So he sat looking over the small elven kingdom that was his mattress instead and called Percy.

When Percy picked up, it was with a tired sounding, “How long’s it been? I almost thought you stood me up.”

It had, in fact, been around an hour and a half, but Jason didn’t comment on that. Instead, he replied, “Did I wake you up? Sorry.”

After hearing Percy talk about how hard he felt it to sleep on the _six-neck,_ Jason felt very inconsiderate for having woken him. 

“Nah,” Percy lied through a yawn. “Where are you right now?”

“Governing a small elven kingdom. Why?”

“Can you video call—what’s the app called? This is all in Russian, and I used to have a flip phone.”

Jason’s chest flipped. Before he could come up with an excuse, his mouth betrayed him: “Yeah, I do. Do you want—?”

“—I mean, only if you want to. If that’s weird, I—I just haven’t talked to anyone face-to-face in a while.”

“Not even on the _six-neck_?”  
“They talk _about_ me to each other—in Russian. They mostly just Google-translate and write everything they want to say to me, so, _no_. But if you don’t—”

“—No, it’s fine, I do.” Jason’s guts continued to move apart from his body as he got a shirt. (He thought about using Google translate was a little unprofessional, but it also brought him a sense of comfort to know that actual astronauts stooped to Jason’s level sometimes—he couldn’t speak Russian. Why should they have to speak English?) “Give me a second.” He hoped the shirt would contain both his flesh and the more poetic purposes of his organs.

Jason was about to psych himself up to call Percy when Percy called him. Jason mourned the precedent with a nervous inhale (followed by a nervous exhale) and accepted.

A few seconds of glitchish grey pixelation, a second or two of something close to Percy’s face, more pixels. Pixels were seconds for Jason to get his head together. The pixels resolved.

Everything was surreal.

Besides being in a slightly more horizontal position (was there a horizon in space?) than Jason, the two were rather similar.

Jason existed on a bed with crumpled white sheets somewhere in New York City, and Percy was God-knows-how-far-away, sitting on another bed, looking for all the world like he was also on Earth—no pun intended.

Jason became aware, suddenly, of the fact that he hadn’t—or couldn’t—breathed since he’d opened the video call.

Percy was laughing at him—silent as he could, fist to his mouth (fist to Jason’s stomach, more like)—or perhaps he was laughing at himself.

“What?” Jason managed. “Why—” he broke himself off with a laugh of his own. He really couldn’t help it.

“Nothing, I—” Percy stopped. He didn’t elaborate.

It occurred to Jason that up until this call Percy had no idea what he looked like.

“I get it.”

Percy cocked his head in a superior way. “Sure.”

Percy was laid mostly back, under a light that was slightly dim and very blue. He looked like what one would think an incredibly tired, pretty, lower twenty-something would look like.

Jason felt like he had not prepared himself for that.

Percy looked mildly uncomfortable for a few seconds before sitting forward, adjusting the phone a respectable distance away from him.

Jason said, “I thought sitting up sucked.”

“Yeah, but”—Percy laid back again—“this angle’s not exactly attractive.”

Jason disagreed.

Percy looked at Jason for a few more seconds before starting to laugh again.

Jason checked his surroundings—he had made sure he didn’t look like too much of an idiot, his shirt was relatively normal, he was sat in front of a completely blank wall. He said, “God, what _is_ it?”

“ _Nothing_.”

Quiet into silence, unfamiliar but comfortable all the same. Jason leaned back against his bed frame. Percy covered a yawn with his wrist.

“I really should’ve let you sleep.”

“I wasn’t sleeping.”

“It’s either that or sex hair, I mean…”

Percy made an unpleasant expression that was meant in good spirit. “Shut up.”

“Have you slept since you got on there?”

Percy shrugged. “Couple times.” His voice said _never for long._

“Christ. Go to _sleep_.”

Percy did the thing where he reached up to the back of his neck. Recognition and attraction lit up all of Jason’s insides. Percy said, placating and half-smiling, “I can try.”

“I’m not calling back until you do.”

Percy bit his half-smile so it staggered and died. “Actually, I was kind of thinking—” he stopped, looking determined. “You should stay.”

_Stay_ was a strange way to phrase it. How could you stay with someone who was farther away from you than the farthest point on your entire planet? Still, if it didn’t make sense to Jason’s head, it made sense to the rest of him.

“Shit. Okay.”

Percy’s camera window flipped to face a dark ceiling. There was the creaking of his bed, the fuzz of something other than sound waves against the receiver, the thud of the phone leaning against the wall. Percy faced the camera lying on his side.

“I swear”—Percy reached to adjust the view of the camera to a thick black strap across his waist—“that’s half the reason I can’t sleep.”

“Is that to stop you from floating? I’m pretty sure it’d be harder to sleep if you were floating.”

Percy breathed a laugh, switching the camera back up. “You don’t experience direction in zero gravity. I’d be fine, I think.”

Jason slid down from the bed frame, almost far enough down on the pillow that he didn’t want to use his spine. “Tell me about it.”

“What?”

“Tell me about it—all the zero gravity stuff. What’s it like?”

Percy shrugged. “Really you don’t start out floating, kind of. If you push off something, it’s like—it’s like you pushed off way harder than you actually did, and you just go flying backwards, and then—and then you hit a Russian astronaut and they yell at you.”

“In Russian?”

Percy nodded somberly. He paused a moment, curling into his inner arm to yawn again. “What’s home—New York like? And school.”

Jason drifted farther down. His shoulders hit cushion. “Same old, really. Everyone’s angry. Lots of traffic and pollution. Pigeons.”

“That’s how I know I’m nostalgic,” Percy muttered. “I even miss the pigeons.”

“Case four nostalgia, at least. Borderline case five.”

“I… don’t have insurance. …Damn it. How’ll I ever be healed.”

Percy’s blinks lasted a few minutes. For most of those blinks he was silent. But every time Jason thought he was asleep, he would say something, and dash Jason’s hopes. (Not that Jason wanted to stop any of that.)

“Talk about something,” Percy prompted, quieter than before, voice sounding less experienced than it had a few minutes previous.

“About what?”

“Don’t care.” Percy was looking at him. “The weather. Favorite breed of dog. Apple or Android. S’just—shit, it works.”

Jason was pretty sure that Percy being (electronically) close to any other human with whom he could communicate would’ve worked, but he was glad it ended up being him.

“Yeah, v’got it. It was raining earlier today; you probably heard it. No thunder, though, which was nice. I really like rain, actually—can’t do it with thunder. Like, who would want a giant sound to just happen out of nowhere? Why does it even _happen_? Why would anyone want that?”

It took Jason a few seconds to realize that Percy was silently shushing him, his index finger held against almost-laughing lips. “…I apologize if I’ve gotten too passionate on the subject of thunder.”

Percy didn’t respond. His hand took a more relaxed position next to his face, though.

“I think I like a solid golden retriever, you feel? They’re classic. I’m not even much of a dog person, but I can get behind a golden retriever. My sister used to want a pitbull, but I think she just wanted it to look cool. They _do_ look cool, honestly. Also, German shepherds. I feel like, if any dog could protect me from getting mugged, it’d be a German shepherd. Well, the pit could probably protect me, too, but then it’d get put down, because the justice system hates pitbulls. Now I finally have motivation to be a lawyer. German shepherds, though—no one would bother a German shepherd. They… they have the racial privilege in the dog world.”

Silence.

“Percy?”

More silence.

Jason decided he’d leave his phone on—in case Percy woke up, in case he wanted anything. He really didn’t want to be the one to leave, either.

He didn’t know what time it was, but he felt tired enough to not care if it was early. Tired in all of the ways he knew he could feel tired, and then some more after that.

He slid himself all the way down onto his mattress.

Now that Percy was asleep, Jason was alone with all of it. It felt strangely intimate, to be sleeping like this, even if there was some amount of hyper-spaced lightyears between them. He decided not to think about it, and kill his brain for then. He felt lucky that he could, for once, just sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nothing like a power outage to fuck up ur update schedule am i rite or am i rite haha yeahhhhhh
> 
> the old chapter name was يعني من الراحة but i decided that was too long
> 
> also idk if yall knew this but i write songs for every fic i write and im currently working on this one which is Cool but im debating on posting the other ones (TCP, Etincelles, etc.) 
> 
> ALSO there's one maybe two more chapters left of this only a few more days until it is complete woooooooh yay !


	14. sojourn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (heyyy I feel like Shit. its rly immature and stupid but apparently im also immature and stupid so it managed to stop me from writing for a couple days. im still sad but im not Immobilisingly Sad like a few days ago)  
> ANYWAY  
> that Original Work is comin along. it aint Good but it Exists.
> 
> also thx for 1000 hits guys *finger guns*

“I saw your boyfriend on the news.”

It took Jason a few seconds to realize who Piper meant, not because he’d forgotten, but because of the title used.

“You did? When?”

“Earlier today. _CNN_ at the doctor’s. Just a picture, but it was about ‘Percy Jackson, NASA’s scholarship winner—returned from days stranded in space’. It was intense. And he’s cute.”

“Oh. Wow. I know. And he’s back? Like, on Earth?”

Piper said, “Sorry for saying he was fake”, but she said it while reaching under Jason’s arm to steal food from his plate, so it didn’t really matter. “Also, yeah.”

Jason couldn’t stop thinking about how this meant that Percy’s mom and not-girlfriend Annabeth Chase knew that Percy was okay. He’d have to tell Percy about that later—if Percy didn’t already know.

Jason next thought about whether he’d been mentioned on the broadcast. Percy’s comm. recorded everything said into it whether it got reported back live or not—Jason knew that from his research. Had that played any part in journaling about Percy’s experience? Jason hoped it hadn’t.

Of course it hadn’t.

He pushed his plate over to Piper; he hadn’t been about to finish, anyway.

It felt like something was happening, but Jason didn’t know what it was. He dug through his bag—his checklists, papers, every impeccable thing—out of the need to just _do_ something. He didn’t know why he felt like something was happening.

He was going to go back to his dorm, watch that news broadcast, search for others, and talk to Percy.

-

The broadcast consisted of some background on the scholarship and Percy—it involved a terrible senior yearbook photo that was almost shitty enough to look humorously nostalgic, but not quite; some pretty old photos of Majestic NASA Spaceships That Didn’t Crash Like the _Varia_ Did, and even a clip from an interview on Percy’s campus before he left—an interview Jason had already seen in full.

Jason was never once mentioned. He felt the tension leave his chest—he didn’t know why he cared about it so much. He didn’t want to be this ‘link’ if all it was going to get him was news coverage and some indie-novel-type title; he didn’t want to have to deal with any of it—he really only cared about the situation at hand. And Percy. But, honestly, they were so similar that it was hard not to tell them apart.

-

“Did you know you were on the news?”

“I was?”

Jason nodded, losing the bottom half of his face in the bend of his elbow. “You were. _CNN_.”

Jason was sitting in one of the back offices of the campus library. It conveniently allowed him to both lie to himself about meaning to complete any studying _and_ call Percy.

Percy grinned and said, “My big break. What’d they show?”

“Some stuff of that interview—the one from March?”

“Mm.”

Percy, meanwhile, was in a Russian space program center—alone in an imposing, cubeish white room with a cot and a door that lead to what Jason guessed was a bathroom behind him. Percy was, at least, wearing actual clothes for once: the plain black sweatshirt just added to the intimidating atmosphere of Percy’s surroundings, but it had to be more comfortable (and cleaner) than the DPC suit. The wide neckline hung over Percy’s shoulders and collarbone in a way that Jason tried very hard not to notice.

“Also, your senior yearbook photo.”

Jason hadn’t been aware until that specific moment in time that a person could roll their eyes that intensely. Percy pushed a hand, harsh, into his cheek along with the previous expression, and Jason decided that Piper had been right.

Finally, Percy shrugged. “At least it means I can call my mom and tell her that I’m, y’know, alive. ’Cept she probably already knows.”

Silence. Jason lifted his chin up from his folded arms and leaned back in his chair, tipping it onto the back two legs, and grabbing a book with the hand he wasn’t using the balance. A ceiling fan spun lazily directly over his head, making the room feel colder than it should’ve.

He almost tipped backward, grabbing the edge of the table before he could really fall. He opened his book, figuring that if Percy wasn’t going to talk, he wouldn’t make him, and would actually attempt to study while he waited.

He was halfway through his second page when he looked up at his phone, to find Percy watching him lazily.

“Have you just been…?”

Percy nodded.

Jason shut his book and put his attention back on Percy—he was grateful for it, honestly, as what he was reading made him want to spoon his own eyes out.

“Look—” Jason started, but Percy interrupted, for which Jason was glad because he really hadn’t planned what he was going to say.

“—Sorry if I’m freaking you out.”

“What? Why?”

“I mean, _I’m_ a little freaked out.”

“Percy?”

“It’s just…” Percy half-smiled, the other half caught between his teeth. “This seems kind of unfair to me.”

“Well, _yeah_ —the whole thing’s unfair. It’s awful.”

Percy sighed. “S’not what I meant. Look, I’ll explain later, in—hey, do you wanna, y’know, meet up? When I get back to New York?”

Jason couldn’t help feeling a little hurt, since he had just assumed that meeting up was a given. “…Yeah. Definitely.”

Percy pulled one of his knees up to his chest. “Whoo,” he said, with little enthusiasm but smiling all the same. He was quiet for a few seconds before saying, “Actually, if I remember correctly—nah, I’ll just ask later.”

Jason desperately wanted to know but decided that he should not push the _later_ s. If all went well, _later_ would eventually be _now,_ and he could ask again.

“Do you know when you’re getting to Nevada?”

Percy had explained that he’d be going to a secret NASA facility in Nevada (which Jason probably wasn’t supposed to know about, but if anyone did have to know, it was probably safest with him) to be checked out to make sure he, quote, “hadn’t contracted any space-germ-shit”.

His stuff from Houston was, apparently, being sent to Nevada as they spoke. According to Percy, it wasn’t very much.

“Yeah,” Percy said. He picked at a fray on the knee of his sweatpanted that was closest to his face. “I should be on the plane later tonight.”

“Night?” 

“Timezones.” 

“ _Right_. It’s only eleven AM here.”

“I don’t even know what time it is here. Could be early morning, early night—it’s not light out. I think.”

“When’s the last time you even went _outside_?”

“…Two days ago? You are my only form of actual entertainment.”

“Glad I’m so entertaining.”

“ _Well_ …” Percy laughed.

Jason looked at his clock. He didn’t have class for an hour. “Sleeping is better?”

Percy shrugged. “Not really. I’m always half-asleep, kinda, though, just ’cause I’m so _bored_ all the time.”

“ _Percy_. I asked you to let me know when you couldn’t—”

Percy waved him off. “Mm-hm. Yeah. But I’ll be home soon. So it’s all good.”

“Do you know how long Nevada’s gonna take?”

Percy grinned. “No idea. Wanna see this scar I have on my shoulder? I had to get an operation. It’s sick as _fuck._ ”

-

Piper reached up to flick the bottom of Jason’s chin to get his attention. She could’ve just said his name, and she definitely knew that, but she did it anyway. Jason looked down to where her head was laid in his lap.

“I need to know,” she said, “is NASA really hiding a ton of shit from us?”

“If I really knew, would you expect me to tell you?”

She shrugged. “If _I_ were you, I would tell me.”

“We’re very different.”

Jason tried to ignore her and look back up at his laptop on the bed in front of them. They were supposed to be watching a documentary for Piper’s class—actually, Piper was the only one who was supposed to be watching the documentary. But she very clearly wasn’t.

She flicked his chin again. “Tell me about him. Or the whole thing. What was going on? You never talked about it.”

“Yeah, ’cause you didn’t _believe_ me.” Jason felt somewhat cheated. “And you never cared before.”

“You just said that I didn’t believe you—which is totally why I didn’t care. But now I know he’s _real_ and he _did shit_ and I want to _know about it_.”

Jason didn’t know where to start. “What… specifically do you want to know?”

“Well, last time I read your texts he was about to sleep next to an engine. What happened between then and when he got back here?”

_God._ That seemed like so long ago. Way longer than it’d actually been.

Jason attempted to tell her. Then he tried again. Then he fished out his phone, turned off the documentary because it wasn’t like they were going to actually finish it with any reasonable comprehension, and scrolled all the way up to where Piper had last left off in his and Percy’s conversation.

It wouldn’t cover the phone calls, but it was close enough.

Piper raised an eyebrow at him. Looking down on her face, from an angle that made her appear sideways, was kind of strange. “You kept all this?”

“…Just read it.”

Piper was a slow reader, and Jason couldn’t see the screen, so there was no way to judge what part of the conversation she was on then. 

“Since he’s not dead am I allowed to say this would make a cool story?”  
Jason just hummed.

-

“Y’know, you’d think he’d ask someone else for help.”

Jason hummed once more.

-

“This is all kinda gay, Jason. You guys are pretty gay.”

Jason hummed again.

-

“That’s it; if you don’t ask this boy out, I’ll be disappointed.”

That time Jason did not hum, but instead nudged Piper’s head off his lap with his knee and snapped, “I plan on it.”

Piper nodded, sage and unfazed, handing back his phone. “Good. You need someone else to hang out with.”

Jason was about to say something when Piper said, “ _Besides Leo._ ”

-

**2:22 AM, (443)293-2629:** _just touched down in NV_

**2:22 AM:** _its raining_

_-_

**3:41 AM, (443)293-2629:** _i finally got my own phone back_

**3:43 AM:** _i guess it would make sense if youre asleep_

**3:43 AM:** _so talk to me when you can_

-

Jason had, in fact, picked up his old (normal) habit of plugging his phone in on his desk and sleeping in his bed, which were a decent amount of feet apart, thus rendering him completely unaware of the flashes and buzzes his phone emitted.

When he did wake up, however, checking his phone was the first thing he did. His first instinct was to call Percy, which sent him to voicemail (lower quality than the borrowed Russian phone).

**7:33 AM, Jason:** _Hey, if you’re too busy, don’t bother responding, just wanted to let you know I saw what you sent._

_-_

That Thursday, four days since Jason had last received any sort of communication from Percy, he listened to a rather extensive voicemail from him, detailing the following: 

-Percy had been receiving general treatment from the Super Secret Facility Hospital in Nevada, until they had found traces of the Thing’s green residue in his bloodstream (Jason didn’t even want to _think_ about how it got there). They couldn’t identify what it was, and freaked out when Percy told them, and—

—The upshot was that Percy was sent to Houston.

-Percy would be coming home the next day. (The day after he called. The same day as Jason listened to the message.) He would be arriving at _EWR_ at approximately four-thirty PM that day.

-His mother wouldn’t be able to make it due to a combination of travel expenses, timing, work, and Percy’s younger (half-)sister, and he would appreciate if Jason could pick him up (“hey, one birds with two stone—shit, it’s one stone and— _two birds with one stone_ ”), although he understood if Jason couldn’t, seeing as the request was both a lot to ask and rather short-notice.

-Houston had given Percy a complimentary NASA shirt. He didn’t know whether to wear it ironically or burn it.

-

**10:14 AM, Jason:** _Yeah, I can pick you up. See you then?_

-

Piper had wanted to come with him, but Jason had refused as politely as possible. For one, he didn’t want to seem like he’d brought someone just to study Percy. For two (is that how it was said?), he didn’t want anyone else to be there. Selfish, kind of unnecessary, but true.

The drive to the airport was, with traffic, almost three hours. Luckily, the rush would lighten up (a bit) on the return trip, so no matter what he slogged through returning Percy to his own apartment, it would be better than _this._

Jason detested both driving and traffic.

-

The plane actually didn’t arrive until four fifty-two, the time between that and the estimated arrival time Jason entertained himself both by thinking what he would say when he saw Percy (it proved fruitless) and reading the latest issue of Cosmo that the lady on the bench next to him had discarded (also fruitless). Eventually a PSA was broadcasted across the terminal that the plane had landed and unloading would begin shortly.

Jason followed suit in discarding the copy of Cosmo.

A text buzzed in on his phone a minute later. 

**4:54 PM, (443)293-2629:** _they asked me if i had any urgent business and i didn't say anything so i guess they assumed i didn't and now i have to wait_

**5:55 PM, Jason:** _What? Why aren’t they letting you out?_

**5:55 PM, (443)293-2629:** _apparently because id hold everyone up. just a few minutes. sorry._

It was just a few minutes. People unloaded—solo teenagers, couples, families, and one really pissed off-looking kid around eleven or twelve. Behind them was a woman in a wheelchairand a flight attendant pushing her, and behind both of them was Percy.

Once fully out of the boarding hall, Percy stood around, amidst all the reunions and people who looked like they new exactly what they were doing, and looked utterly lost.

He was actually wearing the NASA shirt, a limp black backpack slung over one of his shoulders, and… crutches. He’d never mentioned the crutches.

Percy walked for a bit, eventually disappearing among the people. A notification popped up on Jason’s phone a second later.

**5:56 PM, (443)293-2629:** _I cant see you??_

**5:56 PM, Jason:** _I’m sitting on the bench under the 56C sign._

Percy appeared out of the crowd for a moment, only to head the opposite direction. Jason looked up to where he was heading—sixty-five C.

**5:56 PM, Jason:** _Nope. Other one._

He saw Percy stop and turn around, painstakingly heading back to wear Jason was sitting. He got around rather well for someone on crutches, but rather horrendously for someone in general. Jason waited, looking back down at his phone for news.

Someone collapsed with a huff into the seat beside him. “I’d better be so _fucking_ fit after I get rid of these—like, I was never athletic to begin with, but this is a workout.”

Jason turned to look at Percy, and for some reason, it all felt completely different. There he was. Percy was _there._ There, like, sitting on the bench next to him.

Percy looked back at him, almost unimpressed, for a moment while Jason gaped. Then he dropped his head onto Jason’s shoulder.

“Hey, you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was supposed to be posted wednesday ha
> 
> i have no excuse just i was sad
> 
> (ONE MORE CHAPTER LEFT WOOOOH)


	15. jude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (i mention masturbation for, like, half a sentence)  
> (ok more like four sentences)

Finally, Jason got himself together: “Nice flight?”

“Oh, yeah.” Percy lifted up his head. “There was this old lady next to me who was like, _‘are you the young man I saw on the news?’_ and I was like, yeah, Dorris, I probably was—I didn’t say Dorris; her name wasn’t Dorris—and she was all like, ‘ _well, aren’t you afraid of flying now? After crashing?’_ and I said, no, Dorris, I wasn’t until you said that, but now I am, and she—”

“—Percy?”

“Yeah?” 

Silence. Percy brought his arm up to the back of his neck. “…Sorry. Should we go to the car?”

-

Jason could hear Percy’s mother practically shriek through Percy’s phone.

“Yeah, Mom,” Percy said, half-laughing as he spoke. “Go ahead. S’fine. I’ll be there when you get back.”

More angered/excited/disbelieving yells through the receiver. 

“It’s _fine_. Good opportunities and shit—sorry, stuff. Yeah. I promise. …No, I have friends, I’ll be okay. I’ll call you. I love you. Yeah? …Yeah. Ha, _no_. I love you, too. Okay. Bye.”

Percy stared forward. Then he closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the seat’s headrest.

Jason prompted, “What’s…?” and never finished.

Percy nodded. He looked like how Jason felt when he had a headache. “My mom’s an author,” he started, which didn’t make much sense in relation to what Jason had just thought he’d heard, but he allowed Percy to continue: “and she’s recently been trying to publish her books.” Percy turned his phone over in his lap. “A few weeks ago she got this contract which put her on call for Chicago twenty-four seven. There’s this conference happening tomorrow and her agent wants her to go.”

“Oh.” Jason didn’t know whether he was supposed to be happy or consoling.

“And my stepdad’s gone right now, so, I mean, I could stay at home, but—”

“—Empty house.”

“…Yeah. I’m gonna ask Annabeth—my friend—but her roommates’ll be _pissed_ and—”

“—Do you want to stay at my place?”

Jason asked before he really had much time to think about it. Jason didn’t have a ‘place’, he had a dorm. And, sure, Percy’s ID could get him in—anyone’s of the correct age could—but Jason didn’t know if inviting someone to a dorm was much of an upgrade from wherever they could’ve been staying. 

Jason drummed his fingertips along the steering wheel as he waited for an answer.

Percy sighed. “You know what? Yeah. Yeah, whatever. Let’s go to your place. I’d like that.”

Jason gripped the steering wheel. “Cool. I’ll just go home, then, I guess.”

“Cool.”

“…Cool.”

In the newfound silence Percy reached for the radio, without asking but very explicitly, simply jabbing one of the buttons. He scrunched up his face as sound started to leak through. 

Percy gave Jason a very judging look. “What is this shit? _NPR?_ ”

Jason shrugged. “I like the Ted Talks.”

Percy shook his head, fiddling around with the station a while before deciding there was no hope and turning it off. He dug around for his phone.

“Don’t make me listen to that speaker quality for two hours,” Jason said.

Percy waved him off as something percussive and upbeat began to make its way out of the end speakers. “You’ll like it.”

-

Jason was a bigger fan of Percy’s enthusiastic finger-knee drumming and lip syncing than he was of the actual music, but he decided not to tell him that.

-

**7:53 PM, Jason:** _Hey, studying’s off for tonight, just to let you know. Sorry._

**7:53 PM, Piper:** _yeah scool_

**7:53 PM:** _anything up???_

**7:53 PM, Jason:** _I have someone over._

**7:53 PM, Piper:** _damn. things didn’t go well with space boyfriend?_

**7:53 PM:** _what a player_

**7:54 PM, Jason:** _No, this is “space boyfriend”._

**7:54 PM, Piper:** _oh shit_

**7:54 PM:** _things went too well with space boyfriend then_

**7:54 PM:** _well have fun then i guess don’t give him your credit card # and use protection_

**7:54 PM, Jason:** _Piper. He has a broken leg._

**7:55 PM, Piper:** _does that make his dick useless no it doesn’t_

**7:55 PM:** _anyway i’m just trying to be encouraging_

**7:55 PM, Jason:** _…You’re doing great._

“Hey, Jason?”

Jason glanced up from his phone to see Percy holding open the doors to the elevator with one crutch. “Oh. Sorry.”

Percy shrugged with one shoulder and smiled with one side of his mouth. “No problem.”

-

Percy approved of Jason’s room. It was just a dresser, bed, and desk connected to a kitchenette with a fold-out table, but apparently Jason kept his cleaner than Percy could ever manage. (Granted, as Jason had just learned, Percy had a roommate.)

Percy dropped his bag in the corner of the room and dropped himself on the corner of Jason’s bed. He propped his crutches against the edge of the bed.

Jason stood in the doorway. “I guess… yeah. Do what you’ve gotta do, let me know if you need anything, and, uh, bed’s yours whenever you want to sleep.”

Percy flashed him a thumbs-up, then cocked his head. “And you?”

“I honestly have no idea. I still have homework.”

-

Three hours and the time’s worth of very distracted homework later, Jason decided that enough was enough—he’d promised himself, after he knew that Percy was okay and was going to _stay_ okay, that he’d begin to sleep like a normal human.

Percy was not sleeping like a normal person. He was, instead, sitting with one of his legs crossed like he’d be sitting cross-legged, except he couldn’t really cross his other leg. He hugged one of Jason’s pillows loosely, resting his chin on the edge. Jason spun around in his desk chair.

“You don’t have one of those gray boot things,” Jason observed. It was true—instead, on his ankle and calf, Percy had a slim, black brace, that looked kind of like a futuristic thermal sock.

“Nah. V’got pins.”

That didn’t really explain much. “Permanent ones?”

Percy nodded. He laid back on Jason’s bed like a crucifix, letting go of the pillow and sighing tremendously. “I really don’t understand it. Russians probably stole my bone marrow. They’re gonna clone me.”

“D’you know any Russian now?” Jason asked this while getting up and reorganizing his desk. He was ready to keep up again the next day.

Percy snorted. “Shit, no. Can’t pronounce it.” Percy’s shirt, upon his dramatic laying down, had ridden up on his stomach, revealing a sliver of skin. Then, when he sat up, it disappeared. Jason missed it. Then he felt a bit creepy for missing it. He didn’t mention it. Obviously.

Jason leaned back against his desk.

“Seriously,” Percy said. “Where the hell are you going to sleep?”

“I… I’ll just…”

Percy stared at him. Smiling; prompting. He seemed to be on the cusp of laughing. Jason glared back.

Percy said, “If you don’t make it a big deal, it won’t be. It’s late.”

Jason decided not to make it a big deal—it was stupid, anyway. How could _that_ , of all things, be a big deal? How could _anything_ be a big deal anymore? Of course Percy didn’t think it mattered. It was too disgustingly trivial to worry about.

-

Mainly because he knew that Percy was still awake, Jason turned around to tap him, who shifted himself up onto his side. “Hey. Can’t sleep. What do insomniacs talk about at…” Jason reached over Percy’s shoulder to check thetime on his phone, “twelve-thirty?”

Percy half-shrugged. “I mean, my friends and I used to do this thing where—”

Jason couldn’t stop his smile. “—We’re friends?”

Percy practically snorted. “ ’Course. Don’t be stupid.”

Jason didn’t think he wanted to see the undoubtedly over-soft expression on his own face. Luckily, he didn’t have to. Percy did, though, so Jason shifted his face to hide a good portion of it behind his arms.

“Anyway,” he prompted, “your friends and you used to do a thing.”

“Right. We used to say the answer to a question, and then everyone else could ask questions about the question to find out what it was.”

Jason yawned into his elbow. “So, like, twenty questions—”

Percy nodded, proceeding to yawn a second later. “—About questions.”

“Seems complicated.”

Percy nodded. His cheek was pressed into the pillow, scrunching up half of his face. He rubbed his non-scrunched eye. “You wanna just talk? …You have to start.” 

Jason had not expected to have this responsibility be thrust upon him. “What’s your favorite color?”

“That’s the lamest fucking question.”

“That’s not even an answer.”

“Blue.”

“Did you know,” Jason started, pausing when Percy gave him a look of some kind; Jason cracked a smile, “that blue is the most common favorite color?”

“That’s because it’s the best. Basic logic. Do I get to ask a shitty question now? What’s your favorite food?”

Jason sighed. “Jesus, I don’t know. Coffee? You?”

“Blue. And coffee’s not a food.”

For some reason, in Jason’s incredibly tired mind, _blue_ registered as a food, and he didn’t question it. A few seconds later, Percy was laughing at him. He didn’t question that, either.

“C’mon,” Percy prompted after a bit of comfortable silence. “Hit me with the deep shit.”

“Don’t hit me with the deep shit,” Jason responded. “I’ll have a crisis.”

Percy pointed at his own chest. “Perpetual crisis. And I’m gonna hit you with the deep shit.” 

“Yeah. Whatever. Still gonna have a crisis.”

“Do you have a hunch about how you’ll die?”

That came out of nowhere. Jason said so.

Percy shrugged. “I was just wondering. Like, I was so sure I was going to die, y’know, out there. I was _so sure._ But before that, I always thought I would… whatever. Do you, though?”

“Cancer, probably. Alzheimers. Does that kill you? I don’t know. Everyone else’ll know beforehand; I won’t.” He shrugged.

Percy didn’t answer. Then he said, “Okay.”

More silence. Percy: “Your turn.”

Jason asked something he’d genuinely wanted to know, “On the trip there—like, the four months”—Percy nodded in understanding—“could you jack off? Is that how gravity works?”

Percy stared at him. Jason continued, “ ’Cause, like, I mean—I’ve been thinking about this for a while—wouldn’t you just—”

—And Percy started laughing. Jason really, really liked his laugh.

“Am I telling you this?” Percy asked. “I’m telling you this. Yeah, you can. I mean, isn’t it kind of obvious? You can piss in zero-G, so why couldn’t you—?”

“—I didn’t know if it was like a force thing or—”

“— _No_. God, Jason, no.” Percy was still laughing, and trying to stop. (“It’s not even _funny_.”)

“I was just _wondering_ … You know how I’ll die, Percy? V’figured it out.”

Percy stopped laughing, slowly, and said, “How?”

“Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease. S’genetic. But my family shows it really late.”

“I honestly have no idea what that is.”

Jason shrugged. “Cancer. Alzheimers. Who knows.”

“Damn.” Percy faced the ceiling and sighed. Jason faced Percy and sighed.

There was a silence in which Jason was almost completely sure that Percy had fallen asleep. Then Percy sighed again, said, “Whatever,” and was silent for a few more seconds. Then he said, “Do you wanna go somewhere?”

Percy was still staring at the ceiling. Jason was still staring at Percy. “What,” Jason said, “like, right now?”

“No. Later. Sometime. Tomorrow. Somewhere.” He gesticulated vaguely upward. “Us.”

“Yeah, sure.” Silence. “Should I consider that a date?”

“God, I hope so.”

Jason laughed.

More silence. Jason was okay with that. When he spoke again, his voice seemed a little clouded, maybe with disuse, most likely with nerves. “Hey.”

Percy looked over at him.

“Do you kiss before the first date?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”  
“Are you asking me to kiss you?”

Jason considered that. “Yes? Yes.”

Percy’s mouth quirked. “Okay.” He enacted some strange half-twist, leaving his broken leg flat and supporting himself with one arm. He was good. Highschool-player-levels-of-practice kind of good.

Jason had never thought it would’ve gone that well. He reasoned that they were both incredibly lucky—Percy could’ve been dead just then. He could’ve had worse injuries, either mental or physical. He could’ve never spoken to Jason again once getting back to Earth, to America, to New York.

Instead, they were making out on Jason’s bed. Jason rather favored this turn of events.

It was the type of kissing that didn’t need to escalate. Jason didn’t know how long it all lasted, but it died down. Percy propped his chin on Jason’s arm, not bothering to move all the way back to the pillow. It was Jason’s turn to look at the ceiling. The only sound he could hear was his own soft breathing. Percy adjusted beside him, turning mostly on his side and laying his cheek on Jason’s extended arm arm instead of his chin; a more permanent stance.

Percy said, “That was nice.”

Jason swallowed. “I’m glad you’re not dead.”

Percy half-laughed. “Me, too.”

“This all worked out abnormally well, didn’t it?”

“The whole thing’s abnormal, Jason. Think about it.”

“Yeah, but… the whole fact that the moon exploded, and you’re fine, and everyone else is fine, and—”

“—Everyone else _isn’t_ fine.”

Jason remembered that Percy’s entire crew was dead. “Right. I’m sorry.”

“ _I_ might not even be fine.”

“You can end up fine.”

“Can I?”

“You always can.”

“I’m too tired to think about being fine right now.”

“We should both sleep.”

Percy reached up to rub his eye. When he put his arm down, it crossed Jason’s. Jason could sense how numb his arm was going to be the next morning. He didn’t have the heart to tell Percy to move.

“When do you want me to wake up tomorrow?”

Jason remembered that he was supposed to drive Percy home the next day—actually, later that morning. He shrugged with the shoulder that wasn’t connected to the arm on which Percy was laying. 

“Whenever.” Jason didn’t have classes that day, at least that he could remember. And if he did, he could miss them. He really could. “I mean, I’ll still be here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha love you bye


End file.
